top hat

I played a game with myself that whatever part we got to in the movie by midnight would be the omen for 2011. We started the evening with Humoresque. Joan Crawford and her desperate passion for music. The second movie was supposed to be Out of the Past, but it was too late to start a film noir masterpiece by then, so we opted for Top Hat. We could have landed on anything. The Piccolino. Or Eric Blore dressed as a priest. Or Edward Everett Horton doing a double-take. There was a lot of opportunity to land on that.

At two minutes to midnight, we stopped the movie and Stephen grabbed his cell phone, and we huddled there in front of the TV looking at the tiny phone clock tick over to 11:59 and then 12:00, for a clink of Veuve Clicquot and a kiss.

I pointed to the background image Stephen has on his cell phone, then pointed at the TV, then pointed to the cell phone, then pointed at the TV.

Stephen and me: cheek to cheek. Astaire and Rogers: cheek to cheek.