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the oddest instrument I saw at Winfield, courtesy of the band Still on the Hill, who also introduced us all to the joys of the pickin' bow.
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take me out to the ballgame...royals stadium
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Warning: spoilers ahead, if you haven't seen the season finale...
Last chance...
Okay then. Redz has claimed the writers of LOST have it in for all hot chicks on the show, and I concur, but I had been lulled into a false sense of security about Juliet's character, since she's lasted several seasons now without incident. Well, I mean other than the usual incidents of getting gassed, handcuffed to various people and objects, punched in the face, dislodged in time until your brain starts to hemorrage, et cetera. Compared to getting your arm ripped off by the smoke monster or having a baby-faced mercenary shoot you to spite your father, a punch in the face is pretty mild.
And now? Will the fact that she detonated the thermonuclear device send everybody to Do Over Land in the Way Back Machine, so she isn't deaded? Or does she have to be the sacrificial lamb? It wouldn't be so bad if Kate weren't the only woman on the show who seems basically untouchable - easily the least interesting female character they've got. Harrumph.
Anyway. That's it for another season. I'll have the summer off to go sew Dharma Initiative patches on a set of slash-pocket coveralls for my Halloween costume...
My work group just put on this huge (190 attendees) fundraising dinner, which was held last night, featuring a local luminary and with many, many bigwigs in attendance (including the guy whose foot Red stepped on yesterday afternoon. He seemed none the worse for wear).
The lead-up to this thing was just incredible, combining many of the most taxing features of and requiring all the skills necessary to plan an ornate wedding and a successful invasion of a small Southeast Asian country.
The thing went off with almost military precision, because my boss is crazy, but in mostly a good way. A few choice details:
The response was so large that the original venue was going to be too small to seat everyone for dinner, so we had a coctail reception there and moved the dinner to a larger venue in a different building four blocks away. Therefore, we hired three buses to move everybody from one place to another, AND the two school mascots, who showed up in full costume to help move the crowd away from the free booze (no small feat) and onto the waiting buses, where they were whisked away to dinner.
At dinner, all the tables were numbered (naturally). People's name tags were decorated with an old-timey football player. The number on his jersey was Photoshopped (not by me, because I ain't that crazy) to match their table number. In case they got confused (refer to the "free booze" of the previous paragraph), tucked into the back of their nametag was a map of the banquet hall with the tables labeled and numbered, and theirs marked.
There were many such details, large, small, and miniscule. Like I said, these folks were crazy, and I was just along for the ride. But things went off well, it didn't even rain on them when they were getting into the buses, and everybody seemed to have a good time. I guess I can't argue with results, but I do know that event planning is not a field I have any desire to get into. Although I can now skirt a table and tie little bows on placecards like nobody's business.
And the big boss was EXTREMELY happy with how everything turned out, so that's always a good thing.
noontime walk with turtle
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So the bad news is that the work meeting I attended went so horribly that I thought my boss was maybe going to lunge across the table to throttle one of the other participants. (Luckily that participant was not me.) She and I were there serving a consultative role for a big communications project that this team had been told by the big boss that they were going to do and make a priority.
The good news is that the meeting went so horribly that we've been called off the project, after being told that we "misunderstood" what the big boss wanted. Translation: the big boss didn't know what she was asking us to do, even though what she told us was, "I want you to do for this group what you've done for your own department." (I guess she forgot to add "unless it will inconvenience anyone or make anybody at all uncomfortable, or unless it's hard for them.")
This is one of those projects that just have DOOMED written all over them. Where on the way to the meeting, an old crone on the street corner shrieks after you, "Flores! Flores para las muertas!" while crows cackle overhead. It was just a question of time, and better four weeks in than four months in.
O-well.
The REALLY good news is, I got into a novel writing workshop this summer that's being held right here in my town, and I just found out this morning! Yay! Now I have one month to get the first three chapters of my novel whipped into shape to send off to my fellow workshoppers in preparation for the big event. Whee!
Lauren waiting for the big slide at St. Louis City Museum
After six days of basically no allergy symptoms (in Seattle and Portland), as soon as the plane landed in Kansas City, I started to sneeze. Guess the 43 varieties of prairie tallgrass came out to welcome me back home. O-well.
And I'm still a bit on west coast time, too, so feeling vaguely groggy all morning.
And there's the usual amount of Stupid at work. My inner circle of coworkers, my boss, and my boss's boss are all great, smart, competent people, but they can only shield me so much from The Stupid of the larger organization. Plus, I find myself fixating on The Stupid with the horrified fascination of a vegetarian in an abbatoir. Can't...look...away.
Speaking of horrified fascination, saw Watchmen on IMAX with Redz and Hubb last night. It was a good movie, with A LOT OF REALLY GRAPHIC VIOLENCE. Worth it to me to see it, but at the extreme end of what I'd be able to watch.
