and further adventures
My people quotient has gone way up lately.
First there was a brunch at a friend's house - she gathered about 10 vaccinated people for a meal and a movie, and I even managed to be attached to an edge of a mini cuddle pile.
Then, we had a trio of friends for a cookout, and it felt marvelous to socialize with all three of them without faces in boxes.
Then, there was the theater anniversary reunion party. The play was Gallathea, which btw is pretty awesome - it's contemporary with and having clearly inspired Shakespeare, with the language being delightfully punny and main plot involving two girls disguised as boys and falling for each other even as they suspect the other to be female - and the ending finds a way to keep them a couple. I wished I got a larger role in it than I did, but I had found ways to have fun with what I was given. Spouse was in it too, and ultimately had a good time of it.
We recorded it on Friday; for the Saturday anniversary party we broadcast it on YouTube and in the meanwhile the director rented a movie theater for us to occupy, so we got to watch our faces on an enormous screen, and it felt surprisingly enjoyable. We then convened to her house for an after-party, and it felt much like a little island of BeforeTimes (in its joys and despairs both).
Our office has declared something of a soft reopening: the fairly strict protocols for those who would choose to work there were replaced with rather less so, although nobody exactly leapt at the offer.
This seemed like a good excuse to call for an outdoor happy hour. It so worked out that it made sense for my WorkFam (myself and my ex-boss and my ex-cavemate) to get to the office at 2pm and work until 5 from there. Even on a frazzling afternoon with little time to catch up in between our various meetings and with not enough technology (because I've dragged much of my workstation home) it felt remarkably pleasant to just work with the background of other people also working.
Ten of us total showed up at the pub, where we occupied a pair of outdoor bar tables and talked for hours. (For the most part not about what we've been up to since we last met, but rather about our colleagues still present and now-gone and about frustrations we don't normally get to gripe together about and the remember-whens of years past and the sort of stuff we _would_ talk about if we had just meandered in together from the office rather from our distanced dwellings.
(A day later a memo came through requesting more stringent in-office precautions. Uncharacteristically I don't feel like I have been insufficiently cautious.) Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/349935.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.
First there was a brunch at a friend's house - she gathered about 10 vaccinated people for a meal and a movie, and I even managed to be attached to an edge of a mini cuddle pile.
Then, we had a trio of friends for a cookout, and it felt marvelous to socialize with all three of them without faces in boxes.
Then, there was the theater anniversary reunion party. The play was Gallathea, which btw is pretty awesome - it's contemporary with and having clearly inspired Shakespeare, with the language being delightfully punny and main plot involving two girls disguised as boys and falling for each other even as they suspect the other to be female - and the ending finds a way to keep them a couple. I wished I got a larger role in it than I did, but I had found ways to have fun with what I was given. Spouse was in it too, and ultimately had a good time of it.
We recorded it on Friday; for the Saturday anniversary party we broadcast it on YouTube and in the meanwhile the director rented a movie theater for us to occupy, so we got to watch our faces on an enormous screen, and it felt surprisingly enjoyable. We then convened to her house for an after-party, and it felt much like a little island of BeforeTimes (in its joys and despairs both).
Our office has declared something of a soft reopening: the fairly strict protocols for those who would choose to work there were replaced with rather less so, although nobody exactly leapt at the offer.
This seemed like a good excuse to call for an outdoor happy hour. It so worked out that it made sense for my WorkFam (myself and my ex-boss and my ex-cavemate) to get to the office at 2pm and work until 5 from there. Even on a frazzling afternoon with little time to catch up in between our various meetings and with not enough technology (because I've dragged much of my workstation home) it felt remarkably pleasant to just work with the background of other people also working.
Ten of us total showed up at the pub, where we occupied a pair of outdoor bar tables and talked for hours. (For the most part not about what we've been up to since we last met, but rather about our colleagues still present and now-gone and about frustrations we don't normally get to gripe together about and the remember-whens of years past and the sort of stuff we _would_ talk about if we had just meandered in together from the office rather from our distanced dwellings.
(A day later a memo came through requesting more stringent in-office precautions. Uncharacteristically I don't feel like I have been insufficiently cautious.) Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/349935.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.