weekend update

first, let me tell you about the office christmas party last week - i was in charge of games. so many whiners that i work with. i swear, you'd think i was asking them to get up and sing karaoke, when just a little participation in some very innocuous games is all we were asking.
game #1 was each person was to draw a reindeer on the provided paper. the best drawing wins, to be voted on by all participants. the catch is that you must draw it blindfolded. people, it was like pulling teeth to get these weenies to do it. i'm thinking to myself, are you so insecure that to produce a poorly done piece of art in front of your peers might embarrass you? we finally whipped almost everyone into participating, and it turned out to be fun. until i handed out the prize for the winning picture. it was a christmas carol cd, the classics like bing crosby, gene autry, frank sinatra, the platters, all the oldies but goodies you hear in the department stores and such. so i go to give it to this chick, and she says - bing crosby and frank sinatra? i don't listen to that crap!!

hello?! can you be any more rude!? i told her, well, i'm sorry, i didn't know in advance that you were going to win when i was buying this prize with my own money. and she actually gave it away to someone else. the nerve of some people. lucky my feelings don't get hurt easily.

anyway, by far the funniest game was the unwrap race. for this game, i wrapped up a box in three layers of paper. nice and tight. everyone sits in a circle. you give a pair of dice to the first person and they take turns rolling until someone gets double sixes. that person gets to be the first to start unwrapping the present. this time, the catch is that they have to do it with oven mitts on (christmas oven mitts, provided by your truly) the one who gets all the paper off and finally opens the box is the winner, and keeps the prize. as the first person starts in on the gift, the rest furiously take turns rolling the dice until someone else gets double sixes. then the first unwrapper relinquishes the gift and gloves to them, and it keeps going. i could not beleive how competitive they got. at one point, two guys were actually fighting over the box, because one did not believe that the other actaully rolled the sixes, and he wouldn't give up the gift. the best part was when that dude finally won, inside the box was just a note saying "you're the winner", and the prize was the oven mitts. he was pissed, and we all had a good laugh at him.

by the end of the party, everyone decided that the games were cool after all, and that i needed to find a job as a cruise director. yay!

anyway, on to party number two, on saturday night. i drank homebrew cider all night, that our hostess's brother in law brought. let me tell you, this was some very good, very potent stuff. i got pleasantly drunk, just enough so i started telling my friends i loved them, but still remember the whole evening. felt a little woozy in the morning, and i remember (again) why you just can't party til 1 am when you have babies. they don't understand that when mommy has a hangover, they need to not wake up at 6 am. but they were relatively mellow, so at least we could relax in bed and let them play in our room while we recuperated. man, i don't know how i did it in college. used to be, i could (and did frequently) go out for a night of heavy drinking and still be able to get up for class or work in the morning. now, i have to budget in a whole day's worth of lying around doing absolutely nothing if i plan on drinking at a party. this thirty-something stuff is killing me. oh, well.

oh, and i was able to find a cool black pants outfit with a big sparkly snowflake on the front on friday night for $50. what a bargain - i love marshalls.

so now i'm one of about 5 of us here in the office this week. sigh. oh well, at least i have next week off.

happy monday!