Happy Fucksgiving

"Fucksgiving" may have entered my life as someone's typo, but it is now the Thursday-in-November holiday of choice. Its rules are simple:

Gather together as many compatible people who you give a fuck about as practical.
Have a good meal.
Think of the things that you give a fuck about.
Think of the things you thank fuck for.

So upon seeing the new Double Union space, and that there was a substantial and functional kitchen, I hit upon the idea of cooking. There was a conversation while cleaning up from the (awesome!!!) Halloween party. We could bake cookies! Have fresh-baked cookies every time we went! Have parties which involved cooking! THANKSGIVING!!!

So I resolved to host a Thanksgiving party at Double Union, for members and guests.

It turned out that quartzpebble was able to make it, with a delightful friend whose acquaintance I was very pleased to make.

There is not yet a full set of kitchen tools at Double Union, so while there were enough foil baking pans, it was a good thing that I brought a cookie sheet with me, to stabilize the pan underneath the very heavy turkey. It took four hands to get it out without spilling.

I'd been cooking, crocheting, and watching The Middleman before people showed up; after people showed up, there was cooking, crocheting, lock-picking, putting things away and sorting things, and subversive artwork. (Subversive artwork is always such great fun.)

Wednesday through Sunday was poodlesitting, so I was at my aunt's with the poodle most of the rest of the weekend, though emmah and cynthia1960's party was Friday, and my crocheting and I went there too. Once I finish the current project I really must start in on Sex Ed Hat II: What The Dickens!?!?

I did get the opportunity to finish watching The Middleman over the weekend. It is good. I discovered it was still in my crocheting bag on Tuesday, and so now Purple has borrowed it.

Who wear what when why how?

Tuesday: the Dean had kid obligations and could not make the planned marshmallow festivities, so we rescheduled.
Wednesday: a very quiet day at work. Purple took the day off, the lucky actually kind of overworked bastard. Poodlesitting.
Thursday: Thanksgiving, poodlesitting.
Friday: Post-Thanksgiving party, poodlesitting, catching up with norabombay.
Saturday: catching up on administrivia, poodlesitting.
Sunday: catching up on administrivia, poodlesitting.

Monday, we were all back at work and I was very glad to see Purple again. Mr. Quiltbag was very glad that I was still there; he'd heard rumors about what he thought was my department (it was an adjacent department) and feared that I'd left. He pitched the budget proposition to the holders of the purse-strings, who were glad to hear from us early.

There is a conversation I've started having in the past few weeks. "What is that thing?"

The answer is: "This is what happens when you start running out of body parts for your wearables."

Right now my complement of always-on accessories includes:
* Smartwatch, left wrist. Hooked to my phone via Bluetooth.
* Douchebag headphones, around my neck (while out and about, not at work usually): hooked to my phone and my iPod via Bluetooth. Occupies zero to two ears, depending on how much I need to hear.
* Glasses: on my face, unless I'm in the shower or in bed. Connected to my face.
* Work badge: lanyard is looped around my bra strap so that the badge hangs at my waist. Includes: keycard, Clipper card, pocket knife, work keys.
* Fitbit: day mode, mounted on a silk cord necklace. night mode: mounted on an elastic strap wristband.
* Narrative Clip camera: mounted on a tit-resistant wedge shim, dangling from a silk cord necklace.
* tit-resistant wedge shim: holding both the narrative clip and fitbit, this is a binder clamp with an ikea allen wrench hotglued to it. The angle means that the camera is taking pictures straight up and down, more or less, instead of up my nose.

I am running out of body parts, and deeply deeply envy Darkside Knightmares' Mithi, who is a glasshole and her microdrones launch off her hair clip.

(The star that Darkside gave me so many years ago is lying on my keyboard, waiting for me to figure out a way to wear it that doesn't give my neck a rash and is compatible with all the other random things attached to my body.)

Cnt tlk wiv my mouf fuu ov mrshmrllo

As scheduled, quite a bit of #cupcake ducked out from their desks around 5:30-ish on Tuesday. With a nominal effort at stealth, we assembled around the fire pit. I saw radius out looking for me on my way over, and showed him how to operate the fire in the fire pit. Rain had been collecting in the seats, so we brushed them off.

One of the reasons the gathering was more urgent than it might have been is that radius is headed back to his alternate universe home Down Under, perhaps this month but definitely by the beginning of next year. He'll be back around, as he's still Working Here, just ... working from there. So we are getting our cupcakery in while we have the chance.

Assembled included me, radius, the guy in the office next door to radius (a new #cupcake arrival), Purple, the scruffy gay Canadian guy from the UK whose office has the unnecessarily gendered bananas, the Dean and his younger kid, and eventually Mr. Tux. There was chocolate. There were marshmallows. There were graham crackers and Danish butter cookies. There was better chocolate. There were roasting forks. There were very valiant attempts at avoiding making any sort of obscene joke that the kid would pick up on when the marshmallow slid down the shaft of the hot dog sized roasting fork in a trail of white goo, and the subsequent introduction of the scruffy gay Canadian guy from the UK to his first s'more ever. Not everyone was careful to check the seats before sitting down, and the scruffy gay Canadian guy from the UK (he really needs a nickname, and I should check to see whether he's already been assigned one) got "wet bum". Happily, there was fire to help with that.

We gossiped. We told scary stories. A ... lot of them were dev or ops flavored. (Hushed ominous voice: "... and he thought he had a viable backup." *gasps*)

One of the guys had been thinking it would be too cold, and how would we keep warm? It turns out, fire is pretty good at that. I was wrapped up in two jackets and an ankle-length cloak, which also helped.

Dark chocolate salted caramel Ghirardelli squares are *fabulous* in s'mores. The almond toffee kind are also great. To Purple's dismay, the dark chocolate mint cream kind were not so great in that combination.

Purple had offered to give radius a lift home, and the scruffy gay Canadian guy from the UK got a lift as far East as Purple was going. We collected in Purple's office for a little more (warmer) gossip. Someone had a wardrobe malfunction -- the scruffy gay Canadian guy from the UK had forgotten his belt, and it turns out that when that happens, his zipper becomes migratory. We talked about the logistics of the Internet of Things (In Your Trousers), and whether a self-zipping fly was practical (no), and how you'd do a fly status monitoring thingy. Plus exploits.

We trooped out to the parking lot. I told radius and the s.g.C.g.f.t.UK about that time that my high school's academic decathlon team did (and then did not) get disqualified from the state competition (yet again), the Hotel Windows Are High Up edition, after the discussion about how many birds it would take to poop on a smartcar to total it. (A lot.) Purple had already heard that story. heh.

One of the little signposts by which I judge the world is the presence and/or nature of the customary goodnight hug. Typically this is not an event observed by co-workers. There have been times when the presence of observers has bent both of us in the direction of this not being a moment that ought to be presented for misinterpretation. This was not that kind of evening. After a fleeting side-hug (that friend to awkward teenagers everywhere) we were all on our merry ways.