MeatSpace Invaders

So, I was supposed to blog on Friday, and I even had an idea for an entry. Instead, I'm blogging on Sunday, about why I didn't blog on Friday.

Let me explain.

I went to work as usual on Friday morning, carrying with me a camera and a box full of dolls that I planned to photograph during my lunch break. After taking the photos, I was going to use the rest of my lunchtime to write a nice entry about my family's Christmas tree-trimming practices. Meanwhile, at 3:00 pm, my husband would pick up the 8-bits from school, deliver them to my parents (where they'd be visiting for the weekend), and he'd be back just in time to collect me from work at 5.

That plan was brilliant, and it stayed in place until about 10:00 AM, when my boss came to my desk and asked "so are you going to the thing later?"

"... thing?" I was confused. Meeting? Lunch? At noon? In January? What were we talking about, here?

"Yeah, the uh, Christmas party ... later."

" ... party?" Ok, a a party, but WHEN WAS LATER? After work? Saturday?

"Yeah, it's ... wait, didn't you get the e-mail?"

"... e-mail?" I really looked like a responsible employee with my one-word questions and increasingly blank stares.

"It went out ... oh maybe you're not on the alias yet. Hang on ..."

After a few minutes, I learned two very important things.
A: There was a Christmas party happening for the whole office, at my boss's boss's HOUSE, at noon; and
2) I am, in fact, not on the office's e-mail alias.

I mentioned that I didn't have a car with me, and he said they'd get me there, and then my husband could pick me up there and it would actually be less of a drive for him because Bosslady's house was closer to home than the office. (That's true.) So it sounded like a plan and I returned to my desk ... whereupon I remembered that Matt could only pick me up if I needed fetching before 2:30, or after 5. So after describing it all to him online, I said "well, ok, I'll just call you when I know what's going on."

Oh, and there was a Yankee swap happening at this party, so I needed to have a gift with me, with a value no higher than $7.50. Thinking quickly, I reasoned that no one would question the value of the dolls, so after briefly panicking over which of my anime/videogame/nerd themed dolls would go over best with The Office Crowd, I wrapped up a Mudkip in some borrowed wrapping paper and got a ride over with the rest of my department.

Now for the fast-forward: The party was a success, I got a zen-candle-perfume thingy from the swap, I got to know my co-workers a bit better, and the doll was a big hit even though no one knew what it was. And now it's 3:00 PM, I still hadn't gotten a good idea of what time I'd need to be picked up, and people were leaving the party. O_o Okay, no reason to panic, I'll just get a ride back to the office and go back to the original plan of working until 5. A coworker drove me back ... just in time to see the last person lock the door behind her. The door I don't have a key to. Crap.

I ended up going to Northampton with the car-driving coworker, and we browsed the local yarn store until Matt could pick me up there, so the story ends well. (I made it home! Hooray!) But the disruption of my intended plans mixed with the social anxiety of "surprise mingling with 50 near-strangers" in such a way that the rest of Friday, and all of Saturday, were spent panicking about all the stuff I hadn't gotten done yet.

And that's why you're reading about my crazy Friday on a Sunday, instead of reading about picking out Christmas trees on my grandfather's birthday on a Friday. Ta-da!

 -- Jenn