Here I thought managing only 13 shots of yesterday's annual PCC Holiday Potluck was on the low end -- it was only low(ish) compared to last year's 17. Turns out in the past few years it was actually close to average -- 13 photos each in both 2016 (the first of the now-three of these we've had so far at the new office location) and 2015 (the final one we had at the old office). How many pictures I get really seems to vary pretty widely over all the 16 of them I have gone to: if you don't count the single shot I have from 2002 (which was not even taken with my camera; it was a picture of me taken by Janice), the lowest was 7 photos in 2006 -- itself being down from 15 in 2005, the first year I started taking my own pictures. And the most I ever took was 22 photos, in 2012. That year got kind of padded by extra pictures of the table setup, as well as being among the several years Janice also offered a breakfast spread -- something she began phasing out in 2013 (only offering morning drinks that year) and was gone for good by 2014.

As I noted in the caption for the photo above taken this year, it's just as well that breakfast table, nuch as I did always love it, was phased out: it was making us (or me, definitely) too full before the huge meal already awaiting us for lunch.

These "Holiday Potlucks" do seem to have become much more streamlined and, to be honest, less personal than they used to be. I suppose that has to do with the departure of Goldie, who started the tradition to begin with, and thus in essence was the primary cook an organizer of it all. Fifteen years ago, we all had her as an individual to thank for it, then those who helped her with it, then those who brought their own dishes to supplement it. But after she retired six years ago, the tradition continued -- but now, there's no one individual spearheading the cooking of food.

PCC provides the primary, traditional Thanksgiving hot dishes, which now come from one of the store delis: turkey (and Field Roast Celebration Roast for vegetarians like me), stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. Starting in 2015, staff was no longer even allowed to bring dishes that required cooking or reheating, as I guess it was just too much of a logistical nightmare in the kitchen. So, now, there are four categories of sign-up sheet for side dishes to bring for potluck: bread, dessert, beverages, and . . . I forget the fourth. Sweet breads, maybe? I should have taken a photo of the sign-up sheets, damn it! Then I'd have had 14 photos.

Back in the day, we would have these potlucks on a Thursday and then offer leftovers for people to have for lunch the next day, as there was always a lot of leftovers. Not anymore: this gets organized well enough that although there still are leftovers, really none of them are from the hot dishes, and they all get put in boxes for people to take home the same day. And now we always have the event on a Friday, so the food can't be just kept over the weekend.

It's also right after our bimonthly all-office Town Hall meeting. This one was all right, nothing major announced. Cate talked about the "period of maximum constraint," which at first I thought was some reference to something specific to work, but actually -- it was about when the viaduct will close in January, three weeks before the Highway 99 tunnel opens, putting all that traffic on the streets. And our office is right by the north end of the heart of it all. For that period of time apparently they will allow flexible hours shited two hours either earlier or later, to allow for commuting at easier times, and for some people they can telecommune one day each week as long as it's on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. None of this really applies to me since I live so close to work, and I can walk the entire distance when necessary.

Claudia brought the best dessert. She can also be seen in the image at the top of this entry, incidentally -- she's half-flipping me off if you look close. I went out of my way to tell her how delicious this cake was, because when she brought an earlier version of it to the dinner Shobhit and I invited her and Dylan to back in March, and she asked how I liked it, I had said, "It was all right." Apparently she found that rather harsh.

I actually sat across from her at the table yesterday, and when I came back with desserts including a slice of that cake, she said something about telling her if I hate it. I laughed and said, "If anyone would tell you he hates it, it would be me." She turned to her friend Lydia and said, "Matthew has a way of being brutally honest that can leave me crying in the corner."

She was being facetious, but there was obviously a kernel of truth to that. So, I was pretty relieved to find the cake was delicious -- very lemony, in a way the previous cake hadn't been. This one also clearly rose better in the oven, and had very good frosting, apparently having been made a second time after she was thoroughly frustrated with the first attempt that very morning before work. Well, it all came together this time.

She was pretty inescure about it, as evidenced by how she titled the dish: "I make no promises - Cake." It still cracked me up enough that, as you can see, I had to get a picture of it. It was the only decent picture I got of any of the desserts, as a matter of fact.

Oh, I suppose I should provide you with a direct link to this year's full photo set. I edited and uploaded the pictures last night, but it got late enough that I was too tired to write this entry then, which is why it's getting posted now. So, you get an unusual weekend-day regular blog post, after completely skipping the normal DLU yesterday.

I'd say the one thing that set yesteday's Holiday Potluck apart from other years is something you can see in the photo at the top of this entry: the flat screen monitors on the wall in the conference room. They showed a slide show of almost-exclusively pictures I took myself over the years. There were 46 images covering 2002, 2005-2007, and 2009-2017. Only the three photos with me in them were not actually taken by me; that would include the shot of me from 2002, which was taken by Janice. I included that because it was the oldest one I had, and showed the old office location's large conference room before even the 2003 rebranding -- stark white walls, no partitioning wall later used to cut the room in half. Janice got a shot of me helping to set up, which I have done for all of the 16 of these I have attended.

After that, as I mentioned already, I did not start taking my own photos at these until 2005, so that's why that's when the photos otherwise started -- I included between 3 and 4 shots from each year between 2005 and 2017, with the one exception of 2008, which I missed to go to Las Vegas and see Madonna in concert.

Anyway, I shared with Aimée, the Office Manager, my history of PCC Thanksgiving Feasts on Fkickr, and she asked if there was any way to show it as a slide show during this year's meal.

I didn't especially want this work related thing directly linked to my Flickr account (I probably still could have figured out a way to do it that was safe), but I already had the aforementioned 46 images in a work computer folder, for my November slide show I use as my work desktop background images. So I just copied them all to a folder on the company W drive, renamed them so they ordered chronologically by default, and Andrew was able to pull from there.

The images cycled through every 30 seconds or so maybe, so it went through the whole cycle several times -- giving plenty of people the chance to see them all at separate intervals. It proved very popular. The image up in the shot at the top of this entry is of Janice and TJ (a very unpopular guy many did not enjoy seeing today, but excluding him would have removed too many good pictures) on the Holiday Potluck day in 2009. It shows one of the breakfast tables by the front desk, being one of the years that was offered.

It was a nice meal and a nice visit, although something about it seemed kind of less special this year . . . less personal. Like it was part of an annual "tradition machine." Maybe it's just that I've been working there too long, and there's been too much turnover, and I'm missing too many of the people I really loved who are gone now. For all I know it's just as wonderful now to newer people as it was to me ten years ago. I still would never trade it for no such tradition at all, and it does make me happy that the tradition continues.

I remain a little baffled that no one calls it a "Thanksgiving Feast" anymore and instead it gets called a "Holiday Potluck," as if we're placating other religious groups who have their own thing on Thanksgiving. This seems to me a pretty secular holiday, really (granted, I say this as someone who, currently atheist notwithstanding, has a Christian background). And the food on offer every year remains traditional Thankgsgiving fare: turkey, stuffing, mashoed potatoes, gravy.

I did not bring a dish this year. In fact I only brought one once in the past four years. I brought something four times in the past ten years, and all four times it was either a banana bread or my eggnog quickbread. And yesterday showed clearly there was no shortage of breads without my having contributed -- there were wrapped breads that never even got opened. (They might have been eaten had someone opened them and sliced them. Protip!)

I did help set up, although technically not for the potluck itself -- there was a different team of three volunteers for that. I set up instead, as usual, the chairs for the all-office meeting. What happened this time was the meeting ended, those not setting up or staging dishes went back to our desks, and then about twenty minutes later we were all called back for eating.

It was the Merchandising Department's turn to "purge the fridge" and clean the kitchen this week, which I managed to weasel out of as always. I took part in the refrigerator purge every single time for years at the old office, but have managed to avoid it every time at the new office. This is because Aimée sends the department whose turn it is an email, telling them to "choose 2-3 people" for this task. I typically just never join in, figuring the others have it covers. I might step up again one of these days. Who knows? Aimée made me feel better by pointing out that I set up every time for Town Hall meetings -- so much so that she puts me on the list automatically now, before asking for any other volunteers.

So, I skipped both breakfast and dinner yesterday, tactically, knowing how much I'd be eating at work. I did eat some of the nachos Laney ordered during Happy Hour at Bill's Off Broadway, where we had our monthly Happy Hour last night because it was right across the street from the Egyptian Theatre, where Can You Ever Forgive Me? was playing at 6:30. I waited a full week to see that movie just so Laney would join me. I knew she would want to. In the meantime, I had two Hot Butterstotch Rum cocktails -- leaving well enough under budge that I opted to get popcorn at the movie. I figured, after the amount of food I already ate, what difference was popcorn going to make? My weight was going to be up today regardless -- and it only was slightly anyway.

Anyway, we both loved the movie: in my review I gave it an A-. Go read the review for further details. Right now I really need to post this and get in the shower, because I'm seeing Laney again at 11 a.m. for our Sinking Ships Double Feature in the Braeburn Condos theatre: The Poseidon Adventure and Titanic.

[posted 9:21 am]