Some Things Come Full Circle

It was a fun and exhausting weekend, logging over 150 miles in my car. There were college friends in town and Ballet Dancer's birthday party unfortunately on opposite sides of southern California.

Vaj threw housewarming party part 2 in honor of some college friends in town. This time I didn't get eaten alive by mosquitoes in his backyard, and it was much more low key. The food however still rocked, courtesy of his mom.

Spending time with one of my old college roommates, my future book club partner, felt like going back to high school days - sitting in our PJ's at our makeshift slumber party in her parent's house. Except this time, one of us is in her 2nd trimester and falling asleep as soon as the lights are out before we can really start talking about the good stuff. Ah well... She used to fall asleep like that anyway.

After meeting Vaj and our friends from NY for a quick brunch in Huntington Beach, I hooked up the Ipod, and prepared for the trek up north to Valencia. An hour and a half later, I was up on a hill, dipping my feet in the pool of Ballet Dancer's boyfriend's house. A swanky seventies style L-shaped home, in which nearly every room has giant windows facing the pool AND there is already a telescope built in the backyard. How cool is that?

At her party, two funny things happened. As I walked in, Dancer's tea business partner turned around and said "we were just talking about you!" Of course, I wrinkled my nose and said "uh, why?" "Work relationships!" she exclaimed. Uh oh. Then I remembered that duh, both Dancer and her business partner met their significant others from work. Of course, the mouse-eared company is much larger and affords many more places to hide when things don't work out - thus my problem with the whole dating at work debacle.

"How would you feel about being set up? I know this really nice guy and he just broke up with his girlfriend...." Well first of all I was flattered because I've only met Dancer's business partner a few times and she thought highly of me enough to play cupid. Then I proceeded cautiously with some questions.

Turns out I know the guy. Met him years ago when I was still at the company. We were friends for about a month or so, and I found it odd that a month into our friendship, after a couple of lunches and emails, he then casually mentioned his girlfriend was in town taking care of him while he was out sick. When I mentioned this to one of my girl friends, she surprised me with flowers at work a week later, with a card that read "Until you stop meeting weirdos, flowers will have to come from me." Not only is it hard to top that kind of sweet gesture, it was also a good tip off that my gut feeling about things being weird was right. I left the company some time later and didn't keep in touch, though I would still see his name in some credits.

Anyway, he and said girlfriend must have broken up, because now cupid is pimping him out. I gave her my card and told her to tell him I said hi. I'm sure he'll remember me. We'll see what happens.

The second funny thing of the evening occurred after most of the guests had left. I had underestimated how tired I'd be and decided not to head out to Hollywood Bowl for the Pink Martini concert, instead planning to close out this birthday party. A couple of Dancer's boyfriend's friends showed up. The very ones who knew Mr. DD. The same hostess who disliked him. When I realized who they were, I caught Dancer and whispered "is that her?!" "Yes!" she mischievously smiled.

When the couple realized I worked in the same company as Mr. DD, they were also pleasantly surprised. And I wondered if the wife put two and two together to figure out who I was from what Dancer had mentioned to her. It was like a game of "I wonder if she knows that I know that she knows. Or vice versa." Fun indeed.