Saturday

There was a point, a while ago, when I mentioned all of the parties and things that we were to be attending, one time or another tangentially dedicated to our going away. (At the time, I lumped a "girls night out" party for Sunshine in with all the others when that was really more of a "getting married" than a "going away" thing. Mea culpa.) Tonight's party, originally scheduled by one set of coworkers, was to be our last hurrah, sort of. Then another coworker decided to quit and move home early; and lo, somehow, the whole thing got fused together with a Christmas party already scheduled for tonight by the community liaison officer. Confusing, no? Apparently there were just too few weekends left for us to have a party to ourselves. Anyway, we've just returned. It was close enough to walk, so we were able to drink some--though frankly it's so slick on the streets here, after days of rain, that we were leery about coming home tipsy, even on foot. Tonight's theme was "the original Christmas" or something, so there was a lot of good-looking middle eastern food, though little in the way of meatless choices. There were none of the usual speeches or teary-eyed yearbook-signing type poignancy, possibly because we will still be here next week for yet another Christmas party on Friday. By then I will be far less concerned about our chances of moving home with all of our possessions, all the cleaning we have to do, and, you know, the mountain of requisite paperwork. Tonight, all I could really think about was our litany of chores and the Monday morning deadline for choosing our air freight. I am certain that I will be up all night tomorrow getting this stuff done. [Cavin]