smacky and bucky

Sorry De had a crap party (read his post and you'll get the joke!). Ours turned out to be fun. Christmas music, catered food, and alcohol (beer and liquor) to get people feeling festive. Then they broke out the games. Actual games. They said they wanted to take you back to your childhood, so they pulled out Sorry!, Trouble, Operation, Connect Four, Candyland, and Hungry, Hungry Hippos. The four people at our table tried Trouble, but quickly grew tired of it. You have to pop a six to get onto the board or you lose a turn. We switched to tag-team Connect Four. Looking around the room, it was awesome to see adults playing all these games designed for children. They spent SO much time reading the rules! It was a brilliant example of how adults always overthink things. We won most of the Connect Four games because the two people we were playing against analyzed each move like it was chess. It worked against them. They usually failed to see the obvious spot we were about to take to win because they were strategizing... trying to think too far ahead... which is the antithesis of these kids' games. Also, during Trouble, the girl in the marketing department expressed such glee at sending me back to start that I had flashbacks to being 5 and playing these games (I think she did too. She was really excited about sending that piece to "start over").

Yes, even as adults, we sat with our closest coworkers/friends, just like middle school. The IT guys sat together, finance department sat together, editors sat together. There are still dozens of people in my office I only know by face. But we all had a good time.

At the end of the party we received "gender neutral" gifts. I got a tin of Godiva hot chocolate.

And, just before the party, the bluelines arrived for my last fall book (running a few months behind there, not my fault!) and they were beautiful. Signed off on them and boom! My fall season finally came to an end. And on the last day of fall! How perfect is that??? (except that, ideally, the book would have come out in late September, but hey...).

Oh, and Kate: Your comment about my "shapely behind" made me blush. (Thankfully, those are my added quotemarks and not hers!)