I have to start by mentioning this cake. It was fucking delicious. And when I mentioned it to Claudia with Tristan standing nearby, Tristan noted that we sell it, and that it was "clean"—which is to say, it meets our strenuous ingredient standards at PCC. It can be surprising when a cake tastes this great but has no crap ingredients in it.
It tasted remarkably like strawberry shortcake. The cake part was both light and moist, and the strawberry-tinged icing was perfect. I just had a slice of the leftover
chocolate cake at the office this morning and it wasn't nearly as good.
By the way, I became a culinary leader of sorts at Jeff's retirement party at the end of the work day yesterday. Nobody wants to be the first to serve themselves, I don't know why. But, I broke that barrier for both the "
grazing table" and the cake. I was rather hungry fairly early on at the party, and could not quite ascertain whether we were all supposed to be waiting for something before partaking, or if it was open at any time. It got to a point where I was like, fuck it, and I grabbed a plate and started serving myself. Lots of crackers and amazing cheeses.
I was literally asked to be the first to get cake. Claudia, who has worked for the Farmland Trust for two and a half years but was invited larged as a representative of the Trust due to a
partnership with Powers Winery, had evidently been quasi-conspiring with an old PCC colleague about how they didn't want to be the first to get cake either. Claudia actually waved me over and said, "Matthew! Cut the cake!" She made it clear she wanted me to break the barrier.
At first I said, "But I don't want to serve cake to everybody." Claudia replied, "Just cut yourself a slice and walk away." So I thought about it for a split second and thought, why not? So that's what I did.
When I walked back to Claudia and Jami, who I believe Claudia used to worth with here, Claudia was so delighted she said, "I respect you so much!" Funny how things other people are still too embarrassed to do, I'm perfectly happy to do. Having no shame has its advantages. And it's not like there were any stakes to this whatsoever.
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Anyway! I should note now that Jeff is only "retiring" nominally—more accurately, he's simply moving on from PCC after 25 years. Jeff is clearly a fair amount older than I (thought I have no idea what his age is; I would guess within a few years of 60), so I always think of him as more of an "old-timer" emlployee than I am—it kind of hit me yesterday: he started at PCC in 1999, which was a whopping 3 years before I did. Not that long at all, really. Granted, I am certain he had relevant experience for a good number of years before he started here, and I absolutely did not.
As for the future, though, he's already
started his own business, although its web page is currently just the single landing page and kind of unclear (to me, anyway) what his business now is. A small wine distributor? Broker? Something along those lines. He's already had a meeting this week in his official new capacity, with Peter, who officially took over Jeff's old role as Beer & Wine Merchandiser; Jeff's last day as employee was Friday last week. Jeff told us last Friday when he said goodbye, and mentioned it a couple of times yesterday, that things are already off and running with the new business.
I would have to get official confirmation on this, but it
might be the case that I am now the person in Merchandising with the longest continuous employment at PCC. Wait, oops! I just checked LinkedIn: looks like I might be in second place: I started in August 2002, whereas Kevin started in October 2001. I've definitely been working at the office the longest though, there's no question about that.
You know I would find a way to make Jeff's retirement about me, right? For instance, check out this truly iconic photo I got of him at the party yesterday.
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There will be a good number of people I'll give points on my next Social Review for yesterday's party. Jeff, of course; Justine, who helped plan the party; Claudia, who I didn't even know was coming until I saw her there. I got two
great photos of the her and Jeff together. She actually made one of the brief speeches, being there officially as a representative from the Farmland Trust. Justine spoke first, then Jennifer B (who had a pretty lengthy written speech prepared), Peter (ditto), then Claudia.
Justine offered time for others to share, but no one else really did—
except Jeff himself, whose pretty touching speech I actually recorded on video. I thought I did a pretty good job of staying relatively inconspiculous, holding my phone up near my chest rather than out in front of my face. It did result in framing that was fine but not fully ideal, but that's okay. It's what he says that matters, and you can hear and see him clearly.
I showed the above photo I took to Jeff himself as soon as I got a chance, and even he was impressed with it. "Could anything be more you?" I said. He gave me his card with his new email address on it and asked me to send it to him.
As for any chatting or schmoozing, I did chat a bit at different times with Jeff himself, and with Justine—who suggested I say something because I'm "fucking hilarious." Well, I suppose I can be, but it's hard to be that on command, especially when I never got especially close with Jeff. Jusine also put together an online thing where people could upload a video of themselves offering congratulations, etc; it was to be send directly only to him—I uploaded
my video of how we've been greeting each other for twenty years, even though I already emailed it to him directly after putting it together that day. (This practice actually dates back to pre-2004, when Harvey Varga still worked at PCC. Jeff used to say "Harvey Varga" to him in this super deep voice, and Harvey would respond "Jeff Cox" the same way, whenever they passed each other in the office. One day Jeff did the same with my name, and I decided to shake it up and said "Jeff Cox" in a much higher, squeaky-type voice. So then Jeff and I greeted each other that way thereafter.)
But, most of my chatting with was with Claudia, as we had a fair amount to catch up on. When I texted her in December that I'll visit at her house in Port Orchard again one of these says, she replied,
If you do, you should be aware that I started full-time caretaking for my mom who has late stage dementia. Damn. Heavy shit—and I basically took that as an indicator that I should give them their space for a while.
So, I was somewhat surprised last night when Claudia was like, "You should come visit again!" When I asked about her mother, she told me that, after caring for her for six months, she flew with her mom to take her to stay with her sister in Atlanta, who is much better equipped for it. She had just flown back from doing that
this week, so this is a very recent change. Apparently she had been on a long waiting list to get an in-home caretaker, and only finally got notice that she could get one
after the plan to move her mom was set in motion. So, so much for that. In any case, now I
might stop by her place for a bit on my way to Jennifer and Matthew's a week from tomorrow. I want to cross the land connection between Harstine Island and McMicken Island at low tide, though, so it's going to depend on when low tide is. If that doesn't work out I'll just come visit sometime later in May.
She did tell me she'll be celebrating her other friend Jamie's birthday and they might be high on mushrooms when I get there. That would be . . . a trip, haha. I have a feeling that if I come early enough then Jamie won't be there yet anyway, but who knows.
I rode my bike home from the party at about 6:30, which gave me time to just chill out at home for the rest of the evening. I watched Tuesday night's episode of
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert because I heard on a podcast yesterday that
Shogun's Anna Sawai had been a guest. Then I watched the Ryan Gosling episode of
Saturday Night Live from last weekend that everyone had been talking about. It actually was much funnier than usual, although all the breaking and laughing, especially on the part of Gosling himself, got a little old after a while. The Beavis & Butthead skit was pretty hilarious all around.
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[posted 12:28 pm]
