when shove comes to pull

This promises to be a long post.

This post started with a simple sentence, and will end, who knows how.

Friday night I had to retrieve C-ling from a friend's house, got home at 22h46 and went straight to bed. I hadn't been feeling well the whole week and had taken that day off work. There was a big day ahead of me.

Saturday morning I awoke and caught the 8h30 train into the city, stopped at the grocery store, bought a couple of pies and some ice cream and made my way to SJLC where three of the five of us (volunteers) had arrived already. By the time I had arrived there wasn't much to be done as the turkey was in the oven, so we chatted, played a dice game and then volunteer number five showed up, and then within the next half hour, the people who come to SJLC regularly to partake in the food bank we run there. The meal was really good, everyone was really appreciative, we wrapped things up by about 14h50.

I walked to the metro and took it to Peel where I then went to the theatre to see 'Ford vs Ferrari'. Ahead of the movie I saw a preview for a film called 'Just Mercy' which looked intriguing; I added it to my movie list. FvsF was very good, the showing started at 15h20, I had arrived at the cinema at 15h15, so it was well timed. After ads and previews and the movie itself, it was then 18h09; so I had to see how quickly I could get to the company Christmas party that was happening last night.

Took the metro to Viau, wandered about to see where the 136 bus starts, and then found it; had to wait 11 minutes before the next one came and we departed soon after. I got to the reception hall where the party was taking place by about 19h30 and it was well underway. I missed whatever happened before the CEO's speech, and from what I heard of it, I suspect I arrived soon after he had started.

Then there was a talent show, which took place while we were being served our food. Earlier in the year, each of our Chicago and Montreal offices had had a preliminary talent show from which four winning acts would get to perform at the Christmas party; so there were eight acts.
1. Two coworkers of mine who originate from Mexico played a folk instrumental followed by 'Black Magic Woman'. They were plagued with feedback sound issues which really sucked for them.
2. B from the Chicago office did a TedX type of presentation which was both touching and very funny; this was my favourite of all of the performances.
3. A young lady in a red dress (from the Chicago office) sang to a pop song and really controlled the room as her first song, then brought her fiancee up on stage to sing 'Baby it's cold outside'. There is a lot of singing on top of singing for this song and so the volume and mixing for the two singers needs to be pretty close to perfect; sadly, I mostly only heard the fiancee.
4. A worker from our office, his daughter, 13yo, played two Tamil folk songs on violin and then a little 'Jingle Bells' piece that some of us sang to. She seemed to perform error free from what we could tell and was quite impressive.
5. A duo one of whom is from our office, on a ukelele and an upright bass used for plucking not bowing to provide a bass sound. They sang two self composed songs and were very impressive.
6. Was an older lady from the Chicago office who played two classical pieces on the keyboard. The first was more complex and she seemed to have it mastered, the second was a different style and she had to reset a few times. Either way, her performance was well done.
7. A 12yo daughter of a Chicago office worker who did interpretive dance to two songs that she herself had choreographed. It was clear that she had had a number of years of training in dance; (through my untrained eye I wouldn't know what type) but she showed strength, grace, flexibility, fluidity and emotion through her dance, so this also was an impressive performance.
8. To round things out the last act was a guy from our local office who plays electric guitar very well. He first performed a song where his wife sang, the song was played, he played guitar on top of the song, and on the screen in the back was a whole series of photos of their kids. The second song he played alone, an instrumental, where he further demonstrated his skill.

There were three judges picked out prior to the event who gave feedback after each performance, but ultimately, their responsibility was to narrow down the field to three of the eight, and then we all, using our own software, were to pick the winner.

If it had been up to me, I would have picked numbers 2,5 and 7. 2 as it was the only non-music related performance, 5 was for me the best musical performance and then 7 as I think this young girl was both very brave and very talented.

The judges picked 4,7 and 8. I get the sense they picked the two young girls out of sympathy/empathy that they would have felt more strongly the sense of disappointment had they not been chosen, and they picked number 8 for two reasons; it was the most recent one they saw, and, by showing the series of photos of their kids and the song they chose, they pulled at the heartstrings of many people.

As 7 was the only act that matches my top three list and the judge's top three list, that is what I voted for, and in the end, that is who won the event.

The end of the talent show more or less coincided with the end of the meal, so we were all encouraged to get on the dance floor. I went for perhaps a minute, and then collected my things and left. I just wasn't in the mood as I was still coughing quite a bit and still had had a fever earlier in the day.

As I was departing I was accosted a few times by people who were surprised to see that I was leaving as early as I had. I was really torn about leaving early - on the one hand, I wanted to get home to get a good night of sleep to help in my recovery from the cold I've had, on the other I do like to dance. On the dance floor I may exacerbate my coughing situation, or, worse, perhaps I am still contagious - I wouldn't want anyone else to suffer needlessly. I would have liked to have had some conversations with some of the people from the Chicago office, but I didn't have the social energy to get up from my assigned table to move about the room engaging people in conversation - at any time I would have broken out in a coughing fit. Where I really should have met with some of these people was on the previous day where we had a work function all together that had many breaks, but I stayed home that day to try to heal.

The trip home took a long time; I took the 192 bus to Cremazie metro, took the metro to L-G, then had to wait 16 minutes for the 211 to bring me home. Left the reception hall at about 22h35, got home at 0h21.

I really hope that next year I do not catch any cold at this same time of year.