December 20, 2004
It's Time For Wonderful Wonders
I hope everyone has been having a wonderful holiday season! According to my Starbucks cup this morning, "It's time for wonderful wonders," dontcha know.
The choir party last week was marvelous...a huge amount of people showed up, which was funny because not everybody is ever in choir at the same time, so it was odd to see that many people in the same place at the same time. The gift exchange was a lot of fun; it's a nice twist to try to give the most appropriate gift to your person, instead of a gag gift. I thought for two weeks about what to get Brian, and ended up with a Williams Sonoma cookbook, which he loved. My gift was "The Encyclopedia of Opera," from Jane. It's a beautiful book and I'm sure Ricardo will want to borrow it when I'm finished! I'm blessed to sing with, and be friends with, such an extraordinary group of people.
I don't have many photos, but I'll post them as soon as I have a moment to take them off my camera!
The following night was my office party, which was held at a nice little restaurant. It was quite a kick. An open bar combined with very young coworkers equals VERY interesting stories to tell around the water cooler on Monday! I had wine but not enough to lose my senses...and I was very much alone in that! By the end of the night almost every person was completely blitzed! It was the funniest thing. Actually, the FUNNIEST thing were the whispered conversations on Monday morning..."Did I hit on you? Did I get on the table and sing? Did I cry? I have no idea..."
I've been through a LOT of open-bar office parties and have seen too many people get crazy and really regret it later. As far as I'm concerned, it's WAY more fun to stay sober and know the real truth about what everybody did...!
I have lots of photos from that party, but sadly most of them probably need to be tossed out; they're too embarrassing for the people involved. At any rate, they're most certainly not going to be posted here!
This weekend I had my Christmas brunch, which turned out very well. I got up at the crack o' dawn on Saturday (and BOY am I glad I didn't drink enough at the office party to have a crippling hangover!), and baked my little heart out. Afterwards, I made up plates of leftovers and took them around to the neighbors. Well, they have to listen to opera year-round; it's really the least I can do.
Saturday night I spent the evening sailing around Newport Harbor (and Balboa? I don't really know) on a friend's boat...great fun, but nobody had thought to bring any food, so we ended pretty early and went to an oyster bar. Excuse me while I shudder at the thought of oyster meat sliding down my throat...barrrrrrf...but I had some lovely scallops.
I have this evening off...phew!...and then tomorrow is the best part of Christmas, "Christmas Carol" at SCR. I won tickets to "Les Mis" this week, which I'm thrilled about, also.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to mull some wine and watch "Charlie Brown Christmas."