So I enjoyed a night of xmas cheer and door prizes last Saturday, as I had gone with Alicia to her company Christmas Party. Being December 1st, I guess it’s not too early. I of course was in the middle of a cold at the time, having come down with it on Wednesday, ruining my vacation days on Thursday and Friday. I made it to her place by 5:30 (half an hour early) but she actually anticipated that I’d likely arrive early. I wore my suit as is well documented. She wore a black and white dress of elegance. We chatted for a bit while waiting for a cab to take us to the venue. We wanted one for 6, but they seemed to ignore that request and sent one right away, so we asked the cab driver to take the long way. By now, the weather was merely cold, but there was no snow.
We got there just after 6 and went in. I was flummoxed at first by the non-requirement of presenting a ticket, which I guess was a good thing because they didn’t have any. The company was taking photographs of the happy couples, and as we are neither happy nor a couple, we decided to have the photograph taken anyway.
We hung about in the hallway with the 80 other odd people who were there at the time because the main hall wasn’t opened yet, so we had our first drink of the night, white wine. Our mission was to drink sufficient quantities of alcohol to induce us to dance. The bar used a ticket system, and we got 2 premium drink tickets with the invitation, but the extra tickets were kinda pricey.
Eventually we were seated and we sat with some people I didn’t know, which isn’t very hard when it’s not your company party. We were harassed occasionally by a Joan Rivers impostor for some reason. The meal was nice, consisting of a clear vegetable soup, a light salad, chicken breast, filet mignon which was unfortunately too rare to be palatable to me, and then dessert. The dessert consisted of two lines, one for traditional treats like brownies, cookies and such. The other line was for a chocolate fountain which was kind of neat to see, but it drew far too large a crowd and they ran out of fruit to dip under it.
Then the dancing began, something I’m not particularly good at. There was one slow dance, to which I entreated Alicia to join with me. She declined, thus sparing me a repeat of the zombie-like horror I committed the last time I slow danced at highschool Formal. The rest of the dance music was basically of the random-body-movement variety, but there was a battle between the stuff the younger generation preferred, and the older one.
Our drinking continued, to facilitate dancing. I think we had the same number of drinks in all. The initial glass of wine, 2 more glasses with dinner, rum and coke, rye and coke, screw driver, and Apple Sours and soda. Perhaps others, I no longer recall. In any case, the effect on me was sadly momentary and my dancing was in a painfully sober state.
The crowd thinned out very early, by 11 it was getting embarrassing to be on the dance floor. Eventually the people we had met over the course of the night and hung out with were leaving, so we decided to leave as well. That’s when we saw the blizzard. Alicia tried phoning for a cab, but she couldn’t get through, and we eventually got a lift with a coworker back to her place. It was really coming down then. Back at her place we had to be quiet since her parents were sleeping, so we chatted a bit until 2am. I never know when to leave, so I left it up to her, and 2am seemed to be her limit. Rather unfortunately, when she rang for another cab, most places weren’t taking calls. We finally got through to a place and said it would be around 40 minutes.
They weren’t kidding. She and I spent the next hour on the main floor of the house so we could see the cab, but our need for quiet, and her fatigue, made it a very quiet hour of sitting, staring at the snow building up. At 3am the cab arrived and I took my leave. The snow being quite bad made the going difficult, and we had to turn back on a few streets and try others due to the road slipping. Finally got home at 4am, carefully put away my suit for the next time it’s needed, and went to sleep. I slept pretty much through Sunday as well.
I’m still recovering from that cold, yep, attractive as ever.
