Husband is gone for a whole week, and my boss keeps asking me (hopefully) what trouble I’ve gotten myself into.
Unfortunately or fortunately, the craziest, most deviant thing I could think to do was root for the Colts against the Patriots. Yes, I know this pits me against said husband, his immediate family, and the dreamboat UMich alum Tom Brady, but Peyton Manning and the Colts were due. So there.
In late summer, my friend Victoria and I followed an ad in the Ann Arbor Observer for “yoga trance dance”. It brought us to an unfamiliar yoga studio on a Saturday night. No one was there, but the door was open, so we let ourselves in. Excited and unsure, we and another stranger waited in vain. Turns out the Observer had the wrong date, and the event had been the previous evening.
Well, after many months of either being out of town, otherwise committed, or forgetful, I finally went last night. The event has switched to Saturday evenings and changed host studios to A2YogaWorks, but it was good to finally act on my long-dormant intention, only maybe 5 months later!
I have to say that I was apprehensive. I just may be the most self-conscious person on the planet, so the image of myself free-form dancing with a roomful of strangers was somewhat uncomfortable. Worse, my partner-in-crime Victoria wasn’t available. So I was on my own.
Everybody is cheap about different, weird things. I’m cheap about calendars. I balk at purchasing a calendar in December when one can be had half-price or better in January. I am the calendar-buyer in the house. Each year I pick up a few in January, one for the house, one for my husband’s work, one for my work…
A couple of charities sent me tolerable calendars this year – the Matthaei Botanical Gardens, the Nature Conservancy – so the only calendar we needed was the one for my husband’s office. Well, I have been fooling around a lot with taking aerial photos while my husband enjoys his pilot’s license. And I have been posting some aerial and some candid photos onto Flickr.
Flickr has all sorts of relationships with vendors who will happily slap your photos onto business cards, mugs, t-shirts, calendars, and whathaveyou. So I decided not to cheap out this year; I’d custom-make a flight calendar for my husband for Christmas.
We went to my former employer’s holiday party last night. Even though it has been two years since I worked there, my husband and I still go to catch up with the people and enjoy the celebrations.
My old boss’ wife is a trained opera singer, and each year she brings in live music. She sings Christmas carols with the pianist and bassist in that rich voice of hers that finds you wherever you are at the party and invites you to join her. The food is spectacular, the drink plentiful, and the company whip-smart and funny.
From pretty much everyone, I got the inevitable question, “so where are you working now?” and bemused surprise that I’m actually on my second place since I left, 1/year. I learned they’re again advertising my old job, and some of the wives asked me if I was thinking about returning. I hadn’t known, and I’m not, but, it was great to catch up and feel the warmth and affection of the very familiar group. Maybe it was the Christmas carols, those bittersweet songs of longing and hope for holiday perfection, or, maybe it was all the champagne they poured me, but I got nostalgic.
