So long, 2009. Don't let the door...

Somewhere in the world, someone -- maybe several someones -- will write down 2009 as their favorite year. The year they got married. The year their first child was born. The year they bought their first car. The year they made their first million.

I don't know any of them. In my circle of friends and family, 2009 was not a year to celebrate. My late mother's remaining sibling left us. Businesses folded. Friends lost jobs. Lost confidence. Lost savings. Lost hope.

I lost a tumor. Doesn't seem like that big of a deal in comparison. But, of course, everything is relative to what's happening in your own life. And, in my own life, I had experienced my first serious illness.

It just didn't seem like a year to close out in any celebratory way. But, the welcoming of 2010 called for some sort of recognition, so Jeff and I recognized it with a slab or ribs, followed by a slab of eclair cake, all courtesy of Barnelli's at Portillo's. So much for a healthier diet, but hey, it was a special occasion.

And we spent the evening watching a marathon of "Thin Man" movies on TMC. Absolutely smacks of a senior citizen's New Year's Eve gala, but I loved it! As a matter of fact, I loved it so much that I set the DVR to record the last two "Thin Man" movies in the evening's series because I knew I would only be awake to ring in the new year in NYC 's Times Square -- not in Chicago's Grant Park. I'd long been a fan of Nick and Nora Charles, but it was all pretty new to Jeff and he, like me, got a kick of the witty repartee, Asta the dog, and, of course, the requisite party scene at the end where, without fail, a suspect pulls out a gun and yells, "You'll never pin this on me!" (which, pretty much in itself, pins it on said suspect).

I also spent the evening icing my swollen, aching right knee. I'd been hoping to leave it behind in 2009, but it accompanied me, uninvited, right on into 2010.