So much fun!

We spent the evening at Randy's boss's house, with many (most?) of the people from the Mars Space Flight Facility. As always, I'm a little nervous going into large group social functions. I mean, these people are smart! They aren't likely to be asking for my help with a knitting pattern, so what can I possibly have in common enough to socialize with them?

Ah, well, it's now 2:15 Sunday morning. We got there around 5:30, 6 o'clock? We had fun.

See, I always forget how food brings people together. And this was a potluck, so there was a lot of asking, "What's this?" and "Who made that?!". Then there was a lot of begging for recipes and making offers for equally drool-worthy recipes in return.

Then I met K. (I don't like to use the names of people I haven't "cleared" it for, so I'll stick to initials until I get the "go-ahead".) K. and I seem to be very similar, almost "peas in a pod". She's a crochet-er, I'm a knitter. We both want to learn the other skill, so we're going to get together to do that. And we also want to yarn store hop together. *grin*

Then there was M., who made these really yummy mini (!) cheesecakes. I've offered my 3-layer, deep-dish pecan pie (with chocolate chips and cream cheese) in trade for the recipe. M. also has a son who wants a ferret, so we're going to get her son and my son together around our ferrets and let the learning begin. (I can just imagine my son telling the stories about having to clean up all. the. ferret. poop. Hehehehe)

And other K., who is hoping to enter a quilt into the state fair. And gave me the idea to enter my Spring Mystery (which became Ostara) in the state fair. I need to look up the rules and the deadlines, but K. #2 thinks I've got until Tuesday to send in my initial registration. Better hurry! If not in time, maybe I can get Mom to return her shawl for next year's fair (depending on how it turns out!).

I met too many people whose names I can't recall, darnit. But I really enjoyed talking to Z and would love to meet his girlfriend S. I talked to one guy for a while and I can't get enough of a description to help Randy figure out who he was! I mean, "guy with glasses" covers a good seventy percent of the gang tonight. grin

The scariest part of the evening was the ritual burning of last year's Christmas tree. I guess this is a tradition at one of the parties each year and I must've missed that particular party or that part of the party in past years.

See, most people "get" that a cut tree stood in a room for a period of time known as "the holidays" needs water. Fine. But in Arizona, they "drink" gallons a day...and they still dry out to kindling before it's time to take them down. Now imagine leaving that tree out in the hot, dry Arizona sun from January to September.

When they lit it (outside, of course!), it went from a little bit of flame at the bottom to a roaring fire shooting flames 20-25 feet in the air in seconds! It was burnt to the basic trunk and some large branches (small enough to mostly fit in the fire pit) in less than a minute.

This event only emphasized my own refusal to have a once-living-now-dead tree inside my home ever. I'll take artificial and pine-scented fresheners, thank you kindly! So far, the manufacturers of the fiberoptic ones just don't seem to be of the highest quality. In this case, I define "quality" as "the even spreading of the fiberoptic cabling into the branches artfully and with an attention to detail warranting the price asked". Our last fiberoptic tree had... sprays of fiber coming out and looking very weird. Until Puck climbed the tree and settled in for a chewing session or two. This resulted in a time-honored tradition of trimming the chewed fibers...until we sold/gave away the tree in the "Great PTSD Moving Experience".

Anyway, I had a lot of fun. I'm tired, but it's a good, socialized-my-butt-off kinda tired. And tomorrow....well, I'll share the secret of tomorrow's planned fun/excitement after-the-fact.... It *may* involve pictures. *wink*