As I write this, tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and I couldn't help but think that I should rework the opening to Clement Clark Moore's famous poem as follows:
'Twas the second night before Christmas,
And through the Ale House,
Many creatures were stirring,
Including a spouse (or two).
I'll bet that the poet would be aghast if he could see what I've done to the poem. But it fits the main theme of the day - a pre-holiday visit to the Orange Ale House to share a few drinks with the FTF meetup group, and enjoy some free bar food.
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The day opened with me noticing something about a meetup I signed up for. I had planned to get together with a new group (for me) and found out that GFJ had just signed up for the same wait list. Since GFJ and I had an agreement that I would not show up as Marian at a meetup she would be attending, I promptly took my name off the wait list. Later on, I sent a message to GFJ about this, and didn't have the chance to talk about this because her kids were in for the holiday. (The last thing she needs is for them to find about me being both Mario and Marian.) So we will probably need to develop new guidelines for meetups that we are both interested in.
Around 2:00, I started to get ready to go to the Fun Time Friends meetup in Orange, CT. I had figured that I'd get there a little early, and then boogie over to Catherine's for some last minute pre-holiday browsing. That was not to happen as planned. I left Croton at 3:00, and it took the better part of 2 hours to make it to the meetup on time. While driving, I chatted with GFJ. But one of her sons was nearby, so I couldn't chat about the topic I wanted to talk about. So we chatted about some meaningless pleasantries and I wished her the best for her next couple of days in Connecticut with her family.
When I arrived at the meetup, I was the first person there. Luckily, I met another meetup member and we shared the far end of the table in the picture above. It was too noisy to have a meaningful conversation. But we tried to do so as the regular meetup gang ambled in. Eventually, I got the chance to chat with the Meetup organizer for a minute or two. Yet, the noise level in the place got to me. So I decided to leave around 6:30 and go home.
The drive home was uneventful. However, the two beers and the bar food started to induce a little drowsiness in me. The last thing I wanted to do was have an accident. So I stopped for a while to spike my energy level in order to make it home safely. And once I made it home, I crashed on my bed for a few hours before starting this entry.
