2014: New Year's Eve With Inga

In Boulder for New Year's Eve. Third time in the last four years. Each one brings a progression in my life journey, it seems.

This time finds me downtown, three o'clock in the morning, on the west end of the Pearl Street Mall.

The evening had been great fun, but we are eager to call it a night. The temperature had been moderate, but now it is getting downright chilly in the wee small hours.

Hungry, we wait only ten minutes to buy gyros. But the taxi line, stretched along Ninth Street, is much longer and barely moves.  The cabs come painfully slowly, and at times they take away only a single rider, to the overt catcalls of many waiting behind us.

Keith, who just went in plain style with overcoat and scarf, but looked the full English gentleman rogue, went straight home to his condo, because he was in walking distance.

Ash, who had spent the evening in his fur jacket over his LED shirt for the OM symbol (and who did not wander off, at least not far and for every long), wound up hopping on the HOP shuttle bus that took him straight to his home off Table Mesa.

That left Okki and me to tough in out in the cold. Fortunately both of us had fur coats on as well, imitations of course, mine borrowed from Ash and Okki's from his huge plastic container of Burning Man gear.

According to Okki, who had worn his big chinchilla-ish translucent white coat covering red LED wires,  the club where we had spent the evening had previously hosted Burning Man theme New Year's Eve parties.

It was crowded, to be sure, in both the front and back sections of the club, but as far as frivolity in dress, it was just the four of us, and about a half a dozen young women with something resembling costumes and lights in their hair. This year it seemed the place was mostly full of young "possible future participants," as I called them.

Standing in line for our taxi (which we finally got around four a.m.), yours truly would still have been cold, even with the loan of the fur coat (which I took off most of the time inside the club and just wore the gold disco shirt).

What really saved me was the hat that Okki let me borrow. Most people would recognize it as bright blue and yellow stocking cap, with gold Viking horns, as well as a Swedish flag and long blond pigtails hanging from the sides. Okki calls it the "Inga hat," as in "Hello, I'm Inga-from-Sweden."