It's a dress

I just got back from the holiday party. The food was really good, and I even scored a couple of free bottles of wine to take home. :-)

There was less mingling than usual because the place was so tightly packed. We basically took over a downtown San Jose restaurant for the night. Folks asked about Warren, and I told them how he was doing. Denny, my date for the evening, was in good form. A few folks came out of their way to say hi to him, but mostly we had to go and say hi ourselves.

We were seated across from Audrey Castellucci, whose late husband Joe had been a DJ at the station. Like so many of us, she's recently out of work (anyone need a really good Event Planner?). I couldn't tell she was wearing a lot of makeup, but apparenly she came across old photos of Joe just before she left, and you can only imagine how she must've felt. Joe was an institution at the parties; he was Santa Claus, literally. When Joe had his stroke they stopped having "Santa Claus" show up at the parties.

Another major institution, our Chief Engineer, Vince Lopopolo, wasn't there. Many of us were looking for him. Vince has been recuperating from a really bad case of pneumonia. Sigh. The station may be Bob Kieve's (and yes, Bob was there), but Vince is the person everyone is comfortable around. Supposedly when Jane McMillan first met him she thought he was the janitor! (He's the #2 guy there, directly under Bob.)

The "belle of the ball" was Jane McMillan, my former boss. She could've used a few aisle standers and one of those "take a number and wait" setups like they have in delicatessens. It seemed like everyone wanted to say hi and hear how she was doing.

My new boss, George Sampson, was apparenly also there, but I didn't get to see him or his wife, Robin, before they left, and they didn't try to see me, either. I did get to see Robin McElhatton, my Saturday counterpart, and her husband Terry (for bay area folks, yes, he's Dave's son), who I interned under at Channel 11 many years ago. I also got to see lots of other folks I only get to see at these things; I could fill up the journal with names of folks who mean something to me but whose names would mean nothing to anyone else reading this.

Oh yeah -- I got a few compliments on the dress. :-)

Birthdays

Happy Birthday to rinioth!

Happy Belated Birthday to ladysprite!