Weekend Spend, a Carnival, and nominations!
December 21, 2009
This weekend was a social whirlwind. I had the pleasure/pain of organizing lunches with former colleagues and college classmates.
On Saturday, we had BBQ with the former colleague, and the nutty one is as hilariously offbeat as usual. As is her new husband. We got greedy ordering, between the four of us we had 4 full slabs of babyback ribs, an order of tri-tip, 2 orders of mac’n’cheese, french fries, mashed potatoes, and baked beans. I didn’t finish my entire slab as intended, but that just makes for delicious leftovers!
The best part of lunch conversation: inventing zany, improbable uses for a monocle.
Cost: $32, with tip
On Sunday, our group of 7 was incomplete as the Dynamic Darling of the group had family matters to attend, but we still managed to have fun. Three of our group are teachers (middle school and high school), so teacher talk dominated the conversation.
The best parts of lunch conversation:
Lulu turning to me saying, oh! Are you a teacher, too?
Me: No, I’m just mean.
When Sarah recited the whole of Invictus, without batting an eye. And then was awarded a gold star by Sander, the other teacher, at the table.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
—William Ernest Henley
When Sander, a notorious jokester, seated himself next to Kayla, the quietest, shyest of the bunch, to convince her that he’d reformed. After an hour of not picking on her, she laughed out loud at his mockery of someone else and he turned to her with a sly wink, “See? It’s always funny when it happens to someone else, isn’t it?”
At the end of the meal, the bill immediately got stuffed with bills and credit cards and handed to me for the final math. “I’m an English major!” they chorused.
“Guys,” I retorted, “we’re ALL English majors!”
Cost: $14, with tip
Carnavale!
Mighty Bargain Hunter hosts this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance: the Parts of Speech Abuse Edition.
My post on Holiday Traditions was included.
Nominations!
The Plutus award nominations are now open! The nominations will remain open for three weeks.
