Never miss the office Holiday Party

Not the one at the office, the one during the day, which is the office Holiday Lunch. Of course, it's always fun to have potluck lunch with co-workers (at least if you are as blessed with pleasant and rather geeky co-workers as well as funny and very cool co-workers as I am.) No, I mean the Office Holiday Party at a Hotel And We Dress Up and Look Fabulous and There's an Open Bar and Door Prizes. That party.

Last year we were at McCormick and Schmick, which has very good food, but we'd outgrown them and it's less fun if you are calculating how much oxygen is left in the room per person. So this year we went to the Bethesda Hyatt which had food that wasn't quite as stellar but much more elbow room and a dance floor.

I also don't dance much because the sight of me dancing can scar innocent bystanders. As it turns out, David rather likes to dance, so we danced a slow dance and a dancy-dance, which is about two more than I usually dance. And I enjoyed it.

My first year working for the company I danced with Dan. He's one of our engineers and a nice guy, but more engineery than most. He also likes to dance. He's pretty decent at it and is always looking for partners, so I noticed the dance floor with some trepidation. Fortunately, he found others to dance with, so no problem.

And I danced a slow dance with Trevor because, dammit, Trevor needs to do this sort of thing. It's good for him. He reluctantly agreed to slow dance with me and then lit several candles to the "No-more-slow-dance gods," but I got around that by going up to the DJ and requesting a slow dance. Trevor looked both startled and appalled the whole way through, but he lived through it. And he's a better person for it.

I don't drink much at these affairs because, all reports to the contrary, I'm not a total idiot. Which means that I can believe the evidence of my own two eyes and I can remember what happened.

So I had wandered away from the dance floor because I thought I'd lost my keys and was going to check under my seat at the table when I heard someone say "John and Joe are dancing together!" Quick like a bunny - even in my Bob Mackie heels - I got myself back to the dance floor viewing area because John and Joe are both pretty reserved, fairly conservative individuals. In fact, Joe is part of a very small office Bible study group. So I knew I didn't want to miss this.

They were actually pretty darn good. The did a Lindy Hop or Jitterbug or something similar. Something with some swing. Not as flashy as the Lindy Hops I saw in New Zealand, but well worth watching on its own merits. There was a little competition over which of them was going to lead, of course, but even so......Oh, for a video camera.

David was impressed with the diversity of our company until he learned that John and Joe are actually brothers and that they learned to dance at an all boys Catholic school. None the less, the next time I spend more than two seconds with either one of them, I'm going to remember the Holiday Party and be very, very glad I went. In years to come, those who were not there will rue the day. We band of brothers, indeed.