Caterwauling

THE FIRST HAPPY HOUR TODAY: MEETING NOAH

I just want to brag that I got to meet the beloved babalah himself, Noah. (Scroll down for photos that simply can neither contain nor fully convey the Absolute Cuteness.)

For as ridiculously, utterly adorable this kid is in photos? About 70 times more so in person. Congratulations Amalah, and thanks for letting me meet him!

If I could guarantee mine would turn out that absolutely perfect, I *might* even want to have one someday. 😉

THE SECOND HAPPY HOUR, BOTH TODAY AS WELL AS IN A SERIES INVOLVING ADULT BEVERAGES

My workplace has started organizing happy hours; we had our second one tonight.

I was there for about an hour by myself, drinking bloody marys and socializing with the regulars (serious props to the guy who was drinking beer-and-tomato-juice — not for that drink (ugh) but for getting the manager to bring me horseradish for my drink. Yum!).

In between conversations, I was scribbling errant thoughts to myself on the back of gas station receipts that I have cluttering my wallet. (I have more receipts than I do dollar bills. Sad.)

A couple of guys and gals from the office did end up showing up — five out of 200. I suppose we are going to be the “happy hour” crowd from now on. 🙂 Same place, next month — right guys?

While I had fun, of course, I found myself missing the old happy hour crowd from when I worked at Easter Seals — we didn’t make much money, but we somehow managed to drink a lot. Beer was cheaper back then, I guess. 😉

GHOST OF HAPPY HOURS PRESENT

John’s posted some photos of our recent Old Town blogmeet.

Seriously, next time I am so totally requesting that someone cover me with a llama head — I hate myself in photos. Especially when I’m sitting down. Ugh. But everyone else looks splendid, so I’ll shut up now. Thanks for posting those, John!

GHOST OF HAPPY HOURS PAST

Talk about clinging to the past — I have few photos hanging on my walls at home that were taken after that time when I worked at Easter Seals — I had the most fun of my life back then, and nearly every photo I have is of the group of friends drinking at this bar or that bar.

I was one of the major instigators (and perhaps the grand goddess of them all) when it came to getting the masses together to get drunk.

God, those were the days — Howard, the other Dawn, Rob, Lynda, Melissa, the other Melissa, Mike, the other Mike, Crystal, Chris (ah, Chris. …), the other Chris (lord, we had a lot of duplicate names!) and so many others used to join me in barhopping like the world was ending. Not like we were sober enough to notice. 😉

We used to have parties at our homes, too — Howard had the best setup, what with a full BAR in his basement, but I did OK. I always had fun cooking and cleaning for DAYS beforehand. Like, I used to take days off of work so the apartment and food would be perfect for my friends.

FUTURE HAPPY HOURS — SEND RECIPES!!!

Speaking of party foods and such, I’ve volunteered to host a “Carnival of the Recipes” for New Year’s. (See Ted’s for an example.) I’m trying to work up a theme involving party foods and holiday decadence — send me your recipes and I will feature you and hopefully send some traffic your way for the holidays!

We have a variety of kitchens at work. The weird thing is, I rarely if ever use the kitchen that’s located smack-dab in my very department.

At my old job, I would never hang a right out of my office, because my boss and her secretary were situated about 100 feet to the right, and beyond were two people I really just wanted to avoid at all costs.

I had a corner office, so I’d shoot out of my door to go around the floor the other way, else I’d beeline straight for the stairwell across from me, go upstairs and then drop down on the other side (usually to go visit my friend Shan or to go to the bathroom or whatever errand I needed to run).

In effect, I really went out of my way to not be seen and/or otherwise engaged in a conversation. Because one person would always be trying to sell some products for her kids, two would try to get me to gossip and I didn’t trust either one (besides, they made up gossip all the time — I technically never said a word to them but somehow was one of their favorite conversation topics) and, overall, I just viewed it as avoiding landmines.

It wasn’t anything overly personal against any of them — I was just pretty good at keeping myself out of trouble..

So here I am now, working with people I genuinely like and possibly even adore, and they are all situated to my right. As is the kitchen.

The weird thing? The highlights of my day are when I get to talking with any of them — this is a funny group, and no exchange goes by without a zinger that lights up my day.

Yet I still go left.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

God, I’m strange. 😉