I *Heart* My Job…

When the head of your department leaves the workgroup a voicemail to advise that the department upstairs will be having a Guitar Hero battle from 3-5 on Friday, and things might get a little noisy, I have to chuckle.

Not only is it pretty cool to work for a company that will have in-house happy hours every few months, but to work someplace where they promote healthy video game competition amongst your peers…that’s just frickin’ AWESOME!

Now, where do I sign up? I play a MEAN guitar…
*red red green blueblueblueblueblue WHAMMIE BARRRRRRR!*

This Reunion BLOWS!! Amen.

Let’s go back about 6 months, when I received in the mail the first correspondence about my ten year high school reunion…
Who knew 10 years could fly by so quickly! When I received that “Save The Date” postcard in the mail, a brief wave of panic washed over me: it’s my 10 year reunion, which means I’m 28, which puts me that much closer to being 30, and I’m still not married, and I still don’t have a successful career, and I’m chubbier than I was back then, and I haven’t kept in touch with anyone (save one American-Scottish convert), and WHAT WILL I SAY TO PEOPLE???? But the panic subsided when I received the second postcard, which included an outline of the planned reunion events: football game followed by catered dinner @ an Irish pub on Friday night, wine tasting and golf outing at local country club on Saturday, Sunday Mass. “Wine?” I thought….I could definitely survive this if alcohol is involved! So I decided to go.

As the date of the reunion approached, I signed up for a MySpace account, figuring that I might be able to get an idea which of my former classmates might be attending. Surely enough, I established contact with a small handful of old friends that I hadn’t talked to since graduation. There was a split consensus as to which reunion events folks were going to, but I decided that I could handle the wine tasting on Saturday (alcohol + uncomfortable situation = bearable), and the Mass on Sunday (to repent of any bad behavior the night before).

A month or so before the reunion, I received MORE correspondence in the mail: the events had changed!! The Sunday Mass was the same, and the Friday night festivities were still on (although as an out-of-towner, I wouldn’t have been able to get there on time—who planned that?!), but the wine tasting and golf outing had been replaced by…wait for it…a Family Fun Run. Ok, there are at least two things wrong with this: 1) NO ALCOHOL (unless they are providing Dixie cups of vodka along the race route) 2) Reuniting while running? I can see it now:

ME: (sweating) Hey…*pant*…how are you? *pant*
CLASSMATE: (squinting) Essaytch? Wow, I didn’t recognize you.
ME: Yeah…*pant*…it’s the sweat…*pant*…I heard you had kids.
CLASSMATE: Yeah, that’s my 4 year old in first place, kicking your ass. Nice to see you!

I had a feeling this was going to suck. BUT, I knew that if I didn’t go, I would probably regret it. So I went…but since Friday night was out, and I don’t run ‘cause it’s embarrassing, I decided only to go to Mass. The day arrives, and after much primping in the bathroom, I head to the school campus for Mass.

I walk in, not sure what the other events of the weekend have entailed nor who might be in attendance. There are maybe 10 alums milling about…with their parents and children. (Note: generally, I dislike children…especially if they aren’t related to me and/or we’re in a public place and/or they aren’t successful at being “seen and not heard”) Now, I hate that initial feeling of walking into a room and scanning the crowd for the face of someone you know. As far as I was aware, only one of my old friends would be in attendance that morning, and so far she was nowhere to be found. But I saw a familiar face, and made my way across the room to say hello. She and I, while we didn’t go to the mall and have sleep-overs or hang out on weekends, were involved in numerous school activities together, and I would have considered her a “friend”…at least enough that I was curious to know how she was and what she’d been up to. This was our conversation:

ME: Hi there!
CLASSMATE: Essaytch! How are you? (hugs)
ME: Doing well. (noticing she’s 6 months pregnant) Wow, congratulations!
CLASSMATE: Thanks!
ME: Gee, I haven’t seen you since So-And-So’s wedding a few years ago! (Note: So-And-So is a guy I’ve known since I was 6, our parents are best friends and we grew up in the same neighborhood)
CLASSMATE: I know, that was so weird that you were there.
ME: (confused) Um, well not really. I’ve known him forever.
CLASSMATE: Oh. (to her mom, standing behind me) Hey mom, let’s go talk to those people over there…
ME: (abandoned) Um, good to see you?

Yeah. No exaggeration. I was completely snubbed!!! If it hadn’t been so sad, it would have been hilarious. Thank God at that moment, my one friend showed up, with a few more folks in tow. It turns out she had attended the Friday night dinner…along with 150 other alums! As I looked around the room at the sorry turn-out of no more than 15 people (not exaggerating), I couldn’t help but feel like maybe I’d missed out on the best part of the weekend. Especially considering they’d all had alcohol…I was stone cold sober. (So what if it was 10 am on a Sunday?) She proceeded to catch me up on all the dirt from folks that had been at the dinner, and then we filtered into the chapel together.

For anyone who has never been to a Catholic liturgy, here’s the basic structure:
Stand…Sit… stand again…then sit…cross yourself…listen to the readings…recite things in response…repeat after me…stand…join hands…cross…sit…rinse and repeat…get in line for the wine and cracker (but only a little sippy!)…sit…pray…cross…genuflect…fall asleep in the homily given by 80 year old priest…stand again…breathe deeply of the incense…aaaaand Amen.

So, if you were to take out the homily (yeah, not even a message) and throw in a handful of noisy children squawking and crawling under the chairs, you’re left with about 20 minutes of pure hell, and that kind of sums up the event. I think I was back at my parent’s house after only being gone a little over an hour…including a run to Starbucks.

I’ll admit I was disappointed. After all the fretting over the event, not to mention a special 3 ½ hour trip south, it turned out to be a bust. BUT, now if anyone asks I can say that I attended my 10 year reunion, and that I don’t plan on attending my 20 year. The reason? Because I don’t need to. You see, there was one good thing that came out of that reunion weekend: I bought tickets to see the school’s fall production of the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. As you’ll see in the next chapter, this would prove to be the catalyst to a weekend of hi-jinks and hilarity…

Coming up next—Chapter 2: All the world’s a stage

Pippin, Warrior Cat (aka: “Dear Roomie, I’m sorry my cat attacked your face….”)

Due to the bizarre happenings at the Bothell Condo last night, I thought this was as good a time as any to introduce Pippin, Warrior Cat:

  

Pippin is a pure bred male Persian, aproximately 6 years old. He’s King of the Condo, Mr. Fuzzy Butt, a lover and a fighter, and on his worst day he gives Battle Cat a run for his money. (Ok, truthfully, on his BEST day he pretty much lays around the condo soaking up all the love the three of us can bestow on him.)

 

He is probably the coolest cat I’ve ever known…cat haters everywhere will convert within the first few minutes of meeting Pip. He’s mostly mellow, sometimes a little feisty, but last night he went completely nuts! Pippin, Warrior Cat became Pippin, Psycho Cat. Let me set the scene (oh, and I have schematics!!!)….

 

Last night, one of the roomies and I were downstairs soaking up the warmth of the fireplace, eating dinner and watching season one of Arrested Development on DVD. We were chillin’: Roomie was studying for finals, the Bunny was hopping around, and Pippin was lounging on the coffee table atop one of the throw pillows from the couch. Suddenly, from off in the distance, the low pulsing sounds of a helicopter was heard. Pippin (being a warrior cat—duh) perked up, eyes wide, ears pricked to the sound of the chopper blades growing closer.

 

Next thing you know, he has pounced, aimed at the back of the couch where Roomie sits (from which he will launch himself towards the mysterious sound). But, alas…the cushion he was formerly snoozing on, is caught in his back claw!! Being agile, he redirects mid-air…OFF OF ROOMIE’S HEAD!

 

Zooming towards the coffee table, killer attack pillow on his heels (literally), Pippin the now-Psycho Cat again redirects mid-air, this time off the laptop, which sends it crashing to the floor. Roomie is ducking and screaming, and I’m jumping out of the way as Pip lands on the floor next to me. Immediately, he jumps again to get away from his attacker (the docile pillow innocently along for the ride).

 

Zooming through the air once again, Pip realizes that although he has lost the pillow, he is now headed straight towards his arch enemy, Bunny!! (Laying in wait near the wall, Bunny is sweetly munching her lettuce, completely oblivious to the chaos reigning around her). Taking immediate action to avoid Bunny (again, being very agile…but this time, not so smart), he overshoots his landing, smacking into the wall!! He ricochets onto the carpet, just past Bunny but well out of range of the attack pillow, and slinks away to the other side of the couch.

Roomie and I look at eachother: “WTF??????” The ruckus was so loud (and our laughs so riotous) that Other Roomie came all the way downstairs to see what was happening. Needless to say, Pippin was afraid of the pillow (among other things) for the rest of the night. I physically had to carry him upstairs to my bedroom for a drink of water and a little “down time”.

 

Pippin, Warrior Cat is now completely retarded. It was a strange night, and Roomie and I are still shaking our heads about what freaked him out so.

 

(P.S…How PHAT are those PowerPoint slides?!?!)