November is over; has been over for hey, over a week now, but there was still one more thing to do when it comes to Nanowrimo – namely, the TGIO party.
Since Richard is one of the Municipal Liaisons for the Sacramento region, we usually host the TGIO party. Most of the time, at least in the more recent years, I haven’t been able to attend because 1) it is usually in the evening, and 2) it is usually the weekend of Vox Musica’s Christmas concert, so most years my contribution to the party has been to help get the house cleaned up, occasionally remember to bake something if I have the time, and then scurry off to perform in the Vox concert and miss the actual gathering completely.
This year, however, the first weekend of December started on the 1st of the month, which was a little early to try to do a party, considering everyone was more likely going to spend that weekend trying to recover from the month prior, plus there were other time constraints. So we all put our heads together and decided to make it this weekend. And because this is also apparently the Weekend Everyone Schedules Their Holiday Parties and we (Richard and I, at least) already had other plans for the evening, we also decided to make it during the day.
So this morning I got up and made a double-batch of scones, primarily because it seemed like a good morning for scones, and also because I knew they would be a tasty addition to the party table and we did some quick tidying around the house (which mostly consists of rounding up all the bazillion cat toys, empty boxes and paper bags that are left out for the cats because there are no spoiled cats in *this* house, not a single one) and stuffing them into a closet out of sight). People starting arriving at about 11, and eventually there were enough of us to fill the living room and spill into the dining room.
(As an aside, we always do these parties potluck, mainly because it’s easy and less stress on whoever happens to be hosting, and it is always amusing to see which way the food skews. Some events there is a fairly equal distribution of healthy (veggie trays, fruits, that sort of thing) versus unhealthy (which we all cheerfully refer to as the ‘death’ side of the table – namely items of the baked or chocolate variety). This time the selection skewed pretty heavily toward the ‘death’ side of the equation, despite the fact that some of the group made valiant an argument that the spinach in the spinach dip actually counted as a vegetable.)
Anyway. It was fun. Mostly everyone just sat around and talked about all sorts of things – the IRC channel, trying to get word count, whether anyone had done Camp Nano before (and what they thought about it), the annoying stupidity of acronyms like YOLO (look it up), and all manner of other things that involved a lot of laughing.
After that was over, and everyone left, then Richard and I did the post-party clean-up and released the cats from where they’d been locked up downstairs (mainly to keep Sherman from running out the door, and Rosemary from jumping up on the table to steal food and/or shamelessly begging for food from everyone there). Then it was off to come up with some suitable gifts for the white elephant exchange at the next social gathering in our agenda, try to make a dent in the mountain of laundry, and oh yeah, sneak in a quick nap (or at least make an attempt, no matter how futile.
This evening we headed off to one of those aforementioned holiday shindigs, at the home of some friends. It was a wonderful evening. Lots of people, lots of chatter, delicious food, silly party games, and just a good time over all. We hugged our goodbyes and walked out into air so cold you could see your breath in front of your face, and then headed home to turn on the lights on the tree and curl up under afghans and pet the cats, and reflect that oh, it has been a lovely day.
‘Tis the season for Holidailies.