For a couple of days before my party I was very busy. I did buying runs to all my favorite stores on my bike. I cooked beans, black eyed peas, collards, and eggplant dip. I didn't remember to get my camera until everyone was posing for a group shot. Ooops, mine was still at home. After that I got it, but I'd missed the shot. Thank you Jason Lehrbaum for letting me use this one.



After that I tried to get at least one picture of everyone that was still there. I missed many of the earlier guests like Susan Grill and Paul Velo. Sorry about that.

     

Jon asked where the Greens were this year. I said that some were here, but some had died and others were now stopped by obstacles like walking six blocks in the cold and dark. Plus there's the fact that I'm not in with the new crowd the way I was in with the old crowd. I mentioned it to them, but it seems that wasn't enough to get them to show up. Oh well...

        

Melanie was handing out cuttings of jade plant. I got one of them and planted it in one of the pots on my porch. Wishing it good luck!

        

One of the smokers outside pointed out that this is the first year that smoking marijuana at festivus is legal. Wow! It was sweet to vote for something like that and then enjoy the benefits.

     

Virginia's feat of strength was to carry all this bling around and show it to people all evening. She explained that she had done one of the half marathons completely by transit and foot. Didn't even set foot in a car that day. She didn't even mention that she'd walked her 100th Half Marathon just a couple of months earlier. I knew because it had been my first half marathon of the millennium. Nor did she mention that hundreds of hours of training also went into those medals. It was an awesome feat of strength.

This time security never did get around to telling us the party was over. People trickled out slowly until something like 1 AM. Then there was a flurry of cleanup and every one else left. The last carload was Lloyd, Renee, and Lauren. Virginia and I just got everything that needed refrigeration into the chiller as quickly as possible and went to bed. So grateful for everyone who came! Thank you for an awesome evening!

Later in Jason's pictures of the event I found these others represented:



        

Some of these pictures also came from Lloyd Cha's post about the matter. Thank you Jason and Lloyd!

           



This guy had the most memorable grievance. He wants us to purge the word "homeless" from our vocabularies, "Because everybody has a home. If it isn't something else there is always mother earth, on whom we are all at home."