Barbra Austin

By the time the year is over, I will have attended five weddings. This breaks my 2008 record, a fact I’m commemorating by wearing all of the same dresses. Or at least the ones that still fit(s), a category which shrank significantly after the second wedding, in Spain, where all personal ham consumption records were shattered.

I’ve written about airplane food before, though it’s generally something I avoid (the food, not the writing or airplanes). On long flights (there’s nothing to eat on short routes anymore), especially from New York to Europe, I figured that my time was spent better sleeping than eating, a preemptive strike against the inevitable jet lag.

Also, airplane food is disgusting.

I have become skilled at sleeping in an economy class seat. At some point I learned that my pillow does more good behind my back than my head. Noise reduction headphones changed everything, of course, and every time I put them on I send a silent thank you (and apology for my less-than-exemplary breakup behavior) to the old boyfriend who gave them to me for Christmas a few years ago. I find that the window seat sometimes allows me to lean against the wall and avoid the old bob ‘n’ jerk of the head. I always nab an extra blanket if I see one in the overhead bin on the way to my seat. A couple of Tylenol PM, eye mask in position, and out I go.

The only way to arrive at Bako National Park is by boat.

Our captain pulled his skiff around, the outboard buzzing anemically. The four of us stepped on and were off, passing a colorful village on one side and a mesh of mangroves on the other. The strait widened to an expanse of tides and currents, the ongoing negotiations between the Sarawak river and the South China Sea.

I was already planning on doing some kind of year-end summary — mainly because I am lazy and thoroughly entrenched at the moment in a holiday cycle of eat, drink, sleep, repeat — but I also because I wanted to highlight some of my favorite posts of the year for new readers, and there are a lot of you, thanks to a certain foodblogging juggernaut who was kind enough to invite me to do a guest post on his site.

This book belonged to my mother, which is strange because she really wasn’t an ambitious cook. She kept things very simple and didn’t often stray from her repertoire.

But I think I know why it was on her shelf.

I got into a little bit of trouble back in high school.

Like many teenagers, I viewed parental absence as an opportunity to have parties. Not the kind of out-of-control, house-trashing, toilet paper-strewn, beer-soaked ragers from the movies, but small get togethers (still beer-soaked) that I hoped wouldn’t compel the cranky next door neighbors to tattle.

I like to rearrange furniture when I’m bored, but since that isn’t really an option for me in my current apartment, I’ve moved my blog.

I know, I know, I haven’t written anything new in over a week.

In cleaning out my mother’s house I discovered something about my father.

Happy new year, wherever you may be!