- a high school reunion
- a University of Denver Publishing Institute reunion
- an office party
- a company party
- a baking party
'Tis the season!
High School Reunion
I drove up to Boston the day after Thanksgiving to attend my five-year. It was at a bar downtown, The Market. The first surprise was that we were sharing the space and the open bar with another high school reunion--which was actually a relief to me, since I had walked in, looked around, and wondered why I didn't recognize anyone.
As soon as I found some friends, though, it was almost as if I'd never left high school. For many, that might seem like a nightmare, but for me the high school misery was all about the workload--I had a lot of good friends that I was happy to catch up with. The music was extremely loud, which made talking a bit difficult, but I still managed to say hi to a lot of old friends. The drinks were very good for an open bar, the dancing was fun, everyone was smiling, and I felt at home. As one of my favorite quotes goes, it really felt as though we'd all grown separately without growing apart.
I had a great time...until the end of the evening. When I went to get my coat from coat check, my scarf was missing. While I was waiting to report that, I saw someone try to hand my scarf back, so I grabbed it. Little did I know that my troubles were just starting.
First, though I went home with a friend who hosted an impromptu slumber party for me and two others. We all curled up on her couches (yep, her apartment was big enough for two!) and I actually had a pretty good night's sleep.
Unfortunately, when Sunday rolled around, I realized that my second wallet was missing. No money or credit cards, but it held my license, MetroCard (with a month's fare on it), work ID, and apartment keys--it's convenient to grab when I volunteer, since I don't want to lug a purse or bag around. As it turns out, while my coat was in coat check that wallet somehow ended up in a classmate's pocket. I thought this would make it easier to get it back, since someone else has had The Market be extremely rude despite losing their coat and turning them out into the night without a jacket, but it's two weeks later and I still don't have my wallet. At least I do know that it's finally in the mail, so I was able to get the building's security to stop calling me and I might even get a week's use out of my monthly MetroCard before I have to get another one. *Sigh*
University of Denver Publishing Institute reunion
A nice, quiet event that one of our instructors hosted at his workplace so that we wouldn't have to compete with the noise at a bar...or, I might add, pay for food and drink. Over an excellent spread of fruit, cheese, guacamole, hummus, over a dozen kinds of cookies, and wine, I caught up with a few people, met new graduates, and talked industry with graduates from the years before us.
A good friend of mine is working for another imprint of the Big Five publisher I work for, though in a different building. Three people from my year are doing internships and freelancing with part-time jobs on the side, still looking for a full-time entry-level job. One woman from Minnesota who just happened to have an evening off before she had to fly back was doing editing and publishing for a financial firm, so we shared chuckles of amusement about where we'd ended up.
Office Party
The very next day was our office holiday party. Since the imprint I work for has just joined with another, there would be a big party later--but we decided that we needed a little celebration of our own.
Once again we had a fantastic spread of food and wine--and beer, for the people who liked it. To my delight, there was a heated tureen of mulled wine, which I'd always wanted to try, and an excellent cheese tray garnished with remarkably fresh and delicious strawberries. Oh, there were cookies, but the fruit and veggies held my attention. Many grapes and much blue cheese was consumed.
Editorial, Production, and Marketing Assistants mingled, trading horror stories and making each other jealous with anecdotes about our amazing authors. We quickly turned to lighter subjects: pets, aliens, movies, Nelson Mandela, apartments and roommates, cooking, exploring NYC on a budget... Toward the end of the evening our boss began encouraging us to finish up the wine. We tried, but a few lucky people went home with partial bottles--myself included. I have a little less than half a bottle of Chateau LaFayette Reneau seyval chardonnay--cheap, but at least I didn't get stuck with a screw-top bottle!
Interlude: Au bonheur des ogres
December has been so exhausting that Saturday was a lazy day, but Neline and I got ourselves out on Sunday to see a film with some of her friends. We got to Manhattan early planning to visit the MoMA design store (Neline needs inspiration for her room), but the crowds of tourists on Fifth Avenue slowed us up. So instead we strolled through the snow, looking at the windows, guessing the accents of the people we heard speaking around us, and stopping in to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.
We stopped in Bouchon Bakery for some delicious hot chocolate and a massive cookie before fighting our way back up Fifth Avenue to the In French with English Subtitles screening, where we saw Au bonheur des ogres, which had been changed to The Scapegoat. It was a comedy in which a famous Parisian department store pays a young man named Benjamin to be the customer service office's "scapegoat": when customers come in threatening legal action, Benjamin is summoned, blamed, berated, and fired--and by the time the customer service rep tells the customers they only need to sign a form to file a complaint, they are so sympathetic to Benjamin that they refuse to sign the form. A terrific cast of characters, whimsical storytelling, and fantasy-infused special effects made it a wonderful film. I have no idea if it's available anywhere else, but I highly recommend it!
We rounded out the night with a visit to Topaz, a small but sweet little Thai restaurant where I devoured an entire plate of chicken, veggies, and rice.
Company Party
Last Friday brought my first company party--and what a party it was!
All the editorial assistants in my corner of the office set out to arrive on time--which mean we were there about a half-hour before most people started arriving, which was also a half hour after the event officially started. It was being hosted downtown near the financial district, closer to our new other half's building than ours, and was in a very plain building. But after checking our coats (and, in my case, moving anything from my coat pockets into my purse) we got on an elevator and went eleven stories up--high enough to have a decent view of the pretty part of the New Jersey skyline.
Since the four of us were the first ones, we basked in the sunlight pouring into the tall windows to warm up from our walk from the subway. One older man walked over to say hi and ask if we were from the other, smaller part of the new joint company and to ask how we were doing. After we'd introduced ourselves I confirmed that he worked with the larger and more famous side of the company I asked what he did--and wouldn't you know, turns out he was the COO! Good thing we were all on our best behavior!
We snagged a table strategically close to the buffet and far from the DJ's speakers, got some drinks, and settled in to wait. Finally some other EAs arrived and joined us. We didn't ultimately mingle with the new part of the company as much as we should have, but given that we hadn't had many chances to hang out socially, we still spent some valuable time together.
The food was absolutely amazing, and all us hungry EAs tucked in well, most of us planning to stuff ourselves so full that we could save ourselves a dinner. There was also an open bar and everyone was pretty generous with sharing tastes of their drinks, so I got to try some new things. When dessert finally arrived, I stuffed myself with two full, delicious pieces of cake--one carrot, one red velvet. Both had cream cheese frosting, my favorite!
Between all the food and drinks were silly pictures with other assistants--production and editorial--and even F.F., our editorial director got in a photo! Unfortunately our best, funniest one either disappeared or never got printed. We're still holding out hope that F.F. or someone else might have grabbed them and will hand them out tomorrow. Of course, if that happens, it probably means that the picture was scanned and will appear on our company's in-house social/work media platform!
I also managed to get in a little dancing, despite how reluctant everyone seemed to be. How is it that I, who am always so self-conscious, will gladly dance when sober while all the funny, easy-going people kept claiming to need one more drink? Ah well, thank goodness for my friends in production! We hit the dance floor for a few minutes towards the end, enough for me to settle my cake before we had to head out
The party wasn't over yet, though. My company split off from the big party to drop into Tribeca Tavern for a smaller get-together. Despite how full I was, a couple of us desperately wanted to get something salty in our stomachs after all that dessert, so we split a small pizza over a game of pool. I teamed up with D.N. against two others and, after some early setbacks, we managed to win the game. Yay!
It was a lot of food and drink, though. By the time I got home around seven, I went to bed and slept through until 9AM the next day! I can't remember the last time I slept for 14 hours.
Baking Party
But wait, there's more! One of Neline's main desires in a new apartment was space to host some friends, and since we have a relative abundance of space in this apartment, she decided we should break the space in with a baking party. Four of our friends got together with us--the perfect number for our dish sets of six--to hang out, drink, sigh over each others' cats, bake, and eat far too much sugary food.
Neline made rum balls but used some whisky she'd gotten from a coworker instead--a small bottle that we were never going to use on its own. We used part of the rest to spike our eggnog, but we still have some left over that will probably sit in the bottle until next Christmas. There was a fancy beer that I tried but, of course, did not appreciate, and a bottle of wine that Neline had won during a Yankee swap at her company's holiday party, but the big hit was a bottle of wine that one of my friends from work had picked up on a whim. It was a sweet red dessert wine, Markovic Estates's Select 2008 Sweet Red Rivesaltes Wine (that link was the closest I could find, though the bottle has a maroon label, not a red one, and there's a good bit more writing on it), a good way to warm up our taste buds for all the sugary goodies we were about to eat.
Anyway, after seven hours of rotating use of the kitchen and kitchen table we had made:
- way too much fudge (which I did not manage to boil long enough despite Dad's day-of reminder email--argh!)
- "raspberry lemonade" cookies
- gingerbread cookies
- a delicious Turkish dessert kind of like a pudding, with biscuits on the bottom and strawberries and raspberry jam on top
- almond cookies with questionable-looking chocolate on top
- very questionable-looking but very delicious whisky balls
In addition to trying some of each, we also consumed:
- cheese and potato burek, courtesy of one of Neline's wise friends who predicted we'd need a break from sugar
- an entire pan of not-quite-seven-layer dip (another of my "cooking" adventures)
- most of a carton of guacamole
- most of a package of queso dip
- quite a few grapes (in my case, with the queso)
Needless to say, a very good time was had by all. Though I did have to brush my teeth twice before bed to get them feeling clean!
The only down side? We now know that our oven is terrible for baking. Cookies that needed 10 minutes had to bake for half an hour! Ah well, we can always potluck it next time.
What's Next?
That's it for parties for now--at least until the annual Kimmel family soup party, but that's about two weeks away. I have realized that I haven't done much Christmas shopping--eep! Better get on that...though all the baking has ensured that any presents I get will have to fight for room in my suitcase with quite a bit of fudge- and jam-spattered laundry.
Recent Reading
Life of Pi, Yan Martel
Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup
The Moorchild, Eloise McGraw
The Book Thief, Mark Zusak
Bitter in the Mouth, Monique Truong
In the Continuum, Nikkole Salter & Danai Gurira
Yes, despite my mountain of new books, I've mostly been rereading. I won't apologize, though--how many of us have had the pleasure of revisiting a book from our childhood to find it every bit as good as we remembered? The Moorchild was one such delight. Bitter in the Mouth, which I read for a class in my Junior year of college, is as astoundingly beautiful as it was the first time--I highly recommend it.
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