We had a lovely fairly low-key evening with friends, though with an unexpected highlight or two. First of all, we were visiting early on with a dear old friend of mine. She’s finishing up law school on the other side of the country, so we rarely see her. It’s been a full year since the last visit…it was New Year’s Eve 2001. How odd. Anyhow, she was lucky enough to experience/witness the little man’s full range of emotions. We were hanging out in the kitchen, finishing up the bbq tofu and such. The timer went off and I tried to open the oven door. We’ve been having trouble with it lately. I beckoned to J, who has been able to use much more brute strength than I could ever muster. So much so, in fact, that the oven door popped right off. So my lucky friend was given the arduous task of restraining the little man, for safety’s sake, while we tried to remedy the situation. J somehow managed to wrestle it back into place, but by that time the monkey was a sad little mess. And to make matters worse, my friend unknowingly sat down on his dining room chair, which sent him into new heights of hysteria. It took me a while to figure out what the problem was, but eventually he began clearly wailing “my chair!” and soon after I managed to calm him down somewhat. And when more friends showed up with Dance Dance Revolution the little man’s mood did a quick 180. We set the game to one player so the little man was able to bop around on the unused sensor pad, dancing right alongside whoever was taking a turn. And that was often person of his choosing. He was in heaven. And getting downright bossy, telling certain people to “come back, your turn” while emphatically pointing at the pad. It was all good. But he wore himself out in a hurry. The rest of us just barely managed to stay awake until midnight, but we did it. Yeah.