Christmas Party Deja Vu

I've just returned from my Christmas Party with the new office. Ironically, we went to dinner at the same cafe as the BDP Christmas Party 2 weeks ago. I ordered all the dishes that came in second place. It was a better meal actually, hmm... Anyway, the dinner was lovely. There were 12 of us, but the New S.African had to cancel owing to the fact that he is sick; poor thing. Poor thing except that the entire office (save 3) are sick. I came down with it this morning and Lovely Clare remarked on several (ok, 3) occasions "Are you ok? You look really pale." sigh... not loving Ireland at hte moment. Anyway... We went to dinner and it was a mercifully subdued affair. Meeting in the pub for a drink first became an exercise in "we're all running late because we feel like crap, let's just go take our table" instead of "drink until they threaten to give our table away", a nice change. We started with a champagne, were seated, then served a round of waters, then the menus, then wine and finally we ordered. I had scallops that could easily have been made into a main course, with which I'd have been supremely happy. Instead it was a starter followed by lamb that was really good. Dessert consisted of bourbon Pecan tart, a delicacy here since they only started importing pecans in the last 3 years. I miss pecans. I miss pecan coffee. Mom is sending me pecans in my next care package; I wonder if I can get some raw coffee beans? Anyway, I was seated between Clare, a recent grad, and my bosses wife who turned out to be lovely company once we got chatting. Topics of the evening included farming practices (turns out Rena, the office manager is fascinated by farming), Las Vegas, Gordon Ramsey pimping his kids on TV in order to keep up ratings with Jaime Oliver, why the Irish have troubles addressing people as Sir and Ma'am, and a discourse of the movie Sideways and why the characters, hateful as they are happen to be empathetic and you end up identifying with them. It was lovely. We did a Chris Kindle exchange, where everyone draws a name out of the hat, buys a gift for that person and then it is handed out. In Ireland you don't reveal who the gift is from. I was given a wonderful gift in spite of the fact that I first unwrapped a lemon. Yep, the fruit, yellow and tart. A lovely lemon followed by a box of whole cloves (which I've been meaning to buy but have never gotten around to doing) followed by 3 mini bottles of Irish whiskey. I have the makings (and Boss Man's Wife provided the recipe for) Hot Whiskey, somewhere between 6-9 servings depending on how long the lemon holds out. The Gift of the night had to be Sima's (that's an Irish name, pronounced phonetically) who was given an acrylic Christmas Tree that lights up thru a USB port. Which is to say that it lights up when she plugs it into her computer. Fabulous. I waited an hour for a taxi and when I arrived home, I noticed that the sky is very light, especially for 1am. And all I could think of was Ann. It's that color of pre-dawn sky when we'd make our coffee runs to the 7-11, just before Blue Hour. I miss those days.

Happy Christmas everyone.