— पांच हजार नौ सौ इकतीस —
I had a whole draft of html commands for embedded photos of more general Christmas themed photos for today's Daily Lunch Update (DLU), and then I remembered: oh, right. We had our Merchandising holiday party yesterday. I need to use photos from
that. Duh! So, then I switched them.
I should start first, though, with my lunch outing—something that very much contributed to my eating way too much over the course of the day yesterday, and honestly I was surprised to be up
only 0.8 lbs when I weighed myself this morning.
It was a small group, going out to celebrate Amanda's 15th anniversary with PCC. Her actual anniversary was actually a couple of months ago, I forget exactly when, but I think it was October. Amanda worked in stores the first several years, and as she was first in Deli and then in HBC (Health and Body Care), I didn't even know who she was until she got this position as the Associate HBC Merchandiser and came to the office in, 2021 I think it was? Anyway, I'm not sure why Steven, the HBC Merchandiser and thus Amanda's boss, delayed to begin with, but most recently it was because he was a trip to Mexico for like a week and a half. He scheduled this lunch for the day he was to get back, and apparently he had so many delays with flights that he actually came straight from the airport to work yesterday.
So, there were five of us: Amanda, Steven, Mackenzie (who works HBC in Category Management), Adrienne (our Private Label Merchandiser, which includeds HBC), and myself. I have a feeling I got added to the invite at Amanda's request, as I was the only one there who doesn't do any work at all in HBC; my department is Grocery.
We all walked to a place called
Maíz, their location in Belltown—I mean, barely Belltown: the other side of the street on 6th at that location would be Denny Triangle. It was kind of funny that Steven chose a Mexican place after spending all that time in Mexico—but, he also showed us stunning photos of both the interiors and views of a house he and his husband apparently just bought in Puerto Vallarta. I can't remember what his husband does for a living, but it must be lucrative.
PCC paid for the lunch, which was a relief. All the entrees were between $21 and $23, which I found kind of shocking. I guess I'm too used to all the Happy Hour menus Laney and I go for. I chose something called
Los Tlacoyos, which turned out to be all right. I thought it would be crispy and instead it was like a soft flatbread with cheese inside and smothered in sauce and toppings and veggies.
Adrienne was actually the one in our group who did not walk; she drove. She actually gave us all a ride back to the office, even though it was barely more than half a mile. She even moved the two carseats from the backseat into the hatchback. Mackenzie was like, "I wouldn't move carseats for anyone." I would have been happy to walk back, and probably would have been halfway there by the time everyone was loaded into the car had I just started when we were done. Oh well.
Amanda did regale us all with the story of how she was hired—including the many different interviews she went through, which was far more involved than anything I went through (but this process was notably different between 2002 and 2010; also Amanda was interviewing for a higher position), and the fact that during one interview she was actually told "I don't think you can think broadly enough to do this position." But, she got hired in the end anyway.
It's a little odd to have been here for
so long that someone can celebrate a 15th anniversary, and I've still been here eight years longer. Two years more (actually closing in on just a year and a half) and I'll have my 25th anniversary here. It's kind of nuts. I already have an email photo overview draft going, which I'm sure will surprise no one.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ इकतीस —
And then, I left with Gabby at 3:00, down to Métier Brewing Company, for our department holiday party. Gabby has not been especially crazy about a lot of the social outings that have been chosen for us in the couple of years she's been here so far, and kind of inevitably, she was tasked with taking the lead on this one. She asked me for my help, although in the end I did very little, in spite of which she CCed me on every email she sent to the venue. I have a sneaking suspicion she'll try to delegate this task to me entirely one day relatively soon, an idea I'm not that crazy about either, even though I've long been one of the most vocally appreciative of these events happening at all.
I have already written a caption to the photo I'll be including in my "Christmastime in the Northwest 2025 (PART TWO)" email, so yet again, I'm just going to copy and paste that here in an effort to save time and effort. Note that the photo this caption is under in the email, is the exterior shot seen in the shot above:
This is my favorite of the shots I got at our Merchandising Department holiday-season social outing—and really the Christmasy-est. If you
look closely you can see about 11 of my coworkers through the windows, mingling and drinking. I meant to count how many people made it when we had peak attendance and then I forgot; in
this video clip [also seen below] I count 18—19 counting myself.
It was a fun night out and a rare chance for the entire department (or as much as we could get out there; this was about two thirds) to hang out outside of work. We also had a couple of guests attend for brief, informal addresses:
Métier Brewing Co. Cherry Street owner Rodney Hines, who also happens to be on the current
PCC Board of Trustees; and
PJ's Classic owner
Michelle Forbes, who was brought in for our dessert of delicious ice cream bonbons. I had four of them. I don't have a problem,
shut up.
The event was also catered by who food gets ordered from at Métier,
Lil' Brown Girl, which
included Berbere Whiskey-Glazed Wings (I did not eat this); falafel-like Split Pea Fritters (I only had a few of these . . . like, seven or eight); and jojos that were maybe the best I had ever tasted. Even the snack pretzels available at Métier were excellent, so I really have to say: highly recommend.
Getting back to original content for this blog post: Gabby is always worried about something like this going well, and in our 1x1 meeting yesterday morning she noted that people were "dropping like flies" in terms of being able to make it: Cathryn wasn't coming because she wasn't feeling well; Brandy was at home in Burien without power and her kids' school canceled; Justine was at home on Whidbey Island, also without power. The power outages were both having to do with the recent "atmospheric rivers" causing flooding all over Central Washington and more recently in many parts of South King County. I haven't heard of flooding on Whidbey Island, but that's remote enough that things like high winds, which we also had, could cause a lot of problems.
Anyway, we have 32 people in Merchandising, so 18 people is closer to 56%. It's closer to 4/7ths than it is to 2/3, but whatever. All things considered it was pretty well attended. It was not the most photogenic event, to be perfectly honest, though I still did my best: I've got a
23-shot photo album out of it, although only 16 of those were actually taken at Métier. I included the one shot I took at Maiz for lunch; and another 5 shots I took on my walk home from there. That did include one shot of the outside of the PJ's Classic shop, and also two shots of the exterior of the Central District PCC store, so they were related!
Gabby is also amusingly concerned about my safety when I walk home from events at night—she was the same way after our P3 Team Happy Hour at Christmas Dive Bar last week. This time, though, she even asked me to text her when I got home. So I texted her
this photo of myself laying on my back on the floor of my parking garage like a dead body. I'd have been much happier with it if I could have taken that shot on the sidewalk outside, but I didn't want people to see me acting like a weirdo.
Taking that shot was a lot easier than it would have been before this week, though: the latest iOS update for Apple devices has added a feature with AirPods that allows you to click the AirPod as a remote button to take photos. I no longer have to set the timer. I still took three different shots before I was even remotely happy with it. That's the final photo in the album.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ इकतीस —
The event was scheduled 3:30 to 5:30, but all but about five of us had left by about 5:00. I left at about 5:15, and had that final shot taken in the garage at 5:45. Shobhit asked me to make chai, which I usually make sure is done early, and this actually wasn't much later than usual; the darkness outside had fooled me into thinking it was later. Shobhit had theater group Zoom call to make, so I went to the bedroom and watched my second Christmas movie of the season:
The Man Who Invented Christmas, about Charles Dickens writing
A Christmas Carol. It was okay, but I really wanted it to be better.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ इकतीस —
[posted 12:35pm]
