The Glass is Half Full as long as There's Wine in it

To me, it felt strange having the wine tasting so late in the season. My first winter, the wine tasting was the first big event of the season and a really nice introduction to my fellow winterovers. This year, the first event of the season was the fashion show, and that wasn't until the end of April. And I definitely feel a difference in the degree to which the crew this season has become a community.

In my mind, it still hasn't...perhaps midwinter will finally bring everyone together. Until then, I'll just have to enjoy what I can and a night out at the library was most enjoyable.

Victoria from Scott Bass plays some mellow guitar.

Cheers from Desiree!

Kelli and Janette along with John, DJ and Craig mingle and chat.

A divine spread of delectable treats from the Galley.

Along with homemade cheese from our Television Man John.

Jen serves her wine with a smile!

Ang enlightens us on one of the reds.

Brian and Larry share a laugh.

Zachary and I pose for a "who's got hot glasses" shot.

Desiree and Craig!

Justin sings us a song or two.

After tasting all the wines, everything starts to blur.

Me and Brian! We also have hot glasses!

Joseph and Larry.
Little did they know, their night was just beginning.

A good evening with good people and pretty decent wine too!

"Picnic in the Park" at the Greenhouse

The greenhouse has a new ongoing event called "Picnic in the Park." The Galley (or in this case, Emily) makes you a sack lunch, or you can get your own food from and take it up to the greenhouse. Recreation even coordinated shuttles to drive people up so we can all maximize our time amongst the plants.

I signed up for Friday and had picnic lunch with Larry, Joseph, Gareth, Kyle and Emily. It was delightful.

Tomatoes...

lovely tomatoes.

Emily, this year's green house technician.

A jalapeño flower!

Face toward the light, smile on.

Nasturtium leaves - nice and peppery.

The Lunch Bunch: Gareth, Kyle and Larry.

The underside of nasturtiums.

Emily bags the harvest.

Grow plants grow!

Sprouting herbs!

Corn flowers!

Kyle certainly enjoys the greenhouse!

BIG beautiful green leaves!

Cucumber!

A cucumber flower!

Kyle relaxes in the comfy chair.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Fried green tomatoes.

Jalapeños!

Larry lounges in the hammock.

As does Joseph.

Emily harvests some leaves.

Green, leafy heaven.

Kale.

Flowering Bok Choy.

I feel like this sometimes...dried up and barren.

Ahhh...88ºF!

Emily makes me smile.

Stalkers

As I was walking back to work one afternoon after lunch, I came to the main intersection in town and stopped by the stop sign. The IT-28 loader was backing out of 120, and I didn't like the idea of being flattened.

And so I waited, the loader backed up the hill and then stopped. The driver, very slowly, intently and eerily gave me the "I see you" hand signal. I signaled back that I saw him and crossed the road. But man, the way he gave that signal stayed with me.

Actually the driver turned out to be my coworker Gareth, who was intentionally being creepy, and so I've taken to calling him my stalker. So he left me this lovely present on my desk:


Awesome. And Joseph has taken to stalking me too. Not only did Joseph do just about the same thing in the loader on another day, but also lapped me in the intersection while driving the loader. Crazy boys.





I guess the moral of the story here is, there's always someone watching, and in this case, I'm glad it was the food monkey boys instead of aliens.

Smoothie Break!

Once a month during the winter, the MET (Mapcon Editing Team - of which I am a part) hosts a smoothie break. Larry, Shandra and I gather the ingredients of yogurt, ice, fruit, frozen bananas we've saved from the last freshies of February. And for a brief moment during winter, we can all pretend we're at the beach sipping our fruity concoction with the sun kissing our cheeks...

What time is it?
Smoothie Break Time!

Shandra prepares for the hoards of fruit-loving winterovers.

We got ice and yogurt from the Galley.

And used strawberry applesauce left over from
flight meals to sweeten the tartness of the yogurt.

I put a brilliantly beautiful purple fake flower on the table and
put out some dried Hibiscus flowers from Trader Joes to share.

Go blender go!

Mmmmmmmm...smoothie.

Jonathan, Cedar and Gareth partake in some fruity deliciousness.

Gareth and Joseph add a little Passion Fruit Squeeze to the mix.

Mark and Zachary try to describe the complex and delectable
taste while Amanda smiles away in the background.

Life is short. Antarctica is cold. Smoothies are good.