Fun, Filth, and Fajitas (not necessarily in that order)

God help me, I'm a total yutz when it comes to housekeeping. I don't know why. I joke about it, but really I am genuinely ashamed of the way my apartment looks on a regular basis. It's so dirty, so dirty, and I can't seem to keep up with it. And while you'd think that picking things up off the floor/tables/countertops/windowsills/any other horizontal surface that collects clutter, and putting them away where they belong, and wiping away messes before they harden into a ghastly cement, and not getting cheese ground into the carpet, would not be beyond the limits of my own intellect - which I flatter myself is not too badly lacking - I can't seem to handle it.

Robbie dropped me off after the fajita cookoff last night and helped me carry stuff upstairs. While I didn't invite him in, I'm afraid he caught a glimpse of the inside of my apartment. I hope the resultant stress-related blindness is only temporary.

The cookoff was hugely fun, and I semi-retract some of my invectives regarding cheapness. We were able to leave early without taking comp time (not officially, but our boss made it fairly clear she'd be looking the other way), and I didn't spend much money on supplies. Or help out much with the cooking (oops). I was mistaken about it being a fundraiser for some other function - it was more along the lines of a company picnic where the attendees have to do the catering. As such, there should not have been so much pressure to attend; but once there I think we all had a blast. There was rather a lot of alcohol involved - provided by individuals, of course.

My boss's peach salsa won first place, and since she had to leave early, the remainder of it is in my fridge. I can't eat it - it's sort of a cilantro pesto with bits of peaches and tomatoes and peppers in it; but I'm sure it's excellent. My team's chicken fajitas, prepared by Jason, also won first and I did get to eat those. Yummy!

I should probably make it clear that there were four teams, though, and I know they didn't all compete in every category.

Of course the best part of all for me was getting to sing with my friend Bill playing the guitar. You forget how much you enjoy things like that. There's nothing else quite like tuning and timing yourself with real live people. I just wish we had more repertoire in common; but I suppose this was only the first of many state-sponsored extortions I will enjoy during the long, long years leading up to retirement - so there's plenty of time.

I learned some interesting things about senior management. The top guy in our division - boss over, I don't know, fifty or sixty employees (??) - who reports directly to the head of the agency, came up to Bill and me as we were harmonizing away. "Oh my God!" said the big guy. "Talent! There are people here with talent?!?"

Realizing that this came across somewhat badly from a man in his position, he tried to clarify, explaining that he only meant that it hadn't occurred to him that anyone working in our division might be talented in any way. This was not as satisfactory an explanation as he'd intended, so he gave up and just told us he was very drunk.

A couple of hours later, many of us were winding down and preparing to leave. I'd ridden with Robbie, so he was planning to get in the car and drive pretty shortly. But the second-in-command of the division had gathered a bunch of folks around to do tequila shots. Would he listen to Robbie's demurrals and protestations that he couldn't do shots because he had to drive? No, he would not. Robbie damn well had to do a couple of shots. We stayed a bit later than we originally intended.

Robbie had sobered up by the time we headed out, so we made it back to my place just fine. How well he was able to drive the rest of the way home with the image of unimaginable filth seared on his retinas, I don't know. Hopefully he'll turn up Monday.