A dark colored newly looking bus was awaiting by the road curb when I exited the company building around 5 pm. One bus with 50 seats was first arranged to take us to the boat for the Christmas Party, and later another bus was added when more people chose to take the bus instead of driving on their own. Taking the bus is preferably a better choice to me, as it is hassle free, not to worry about directions, traffic or parking.
I seated myself next to the co-worker U, a plump lady twice my size. Being fairly new to the company, she was coaxed by me to attend the party by my promise of giving her my two alcoholic drink tickets each employee is entitled to. When the bus started to crawl in the rush hour traffic, our conversations flowed on. Her background of being an immigrant from Poland to Canada, and then Canada to the U.S. made the exchange of immigration experience viable and a good topic. Her U. S green card petition took only a year, while mine almost seven painful years. But then a story of how her dad fled from communist Poland to Canada, and how after two years of separation (under the close watch and restriction of the Polish government) they were united on the free land unfolded to me. When I asked about the concentration camp in Poland, another appalling story was revealed, a story of how her grandma, a Jew, by marrying to a non-Jewish grandfather survived the atrocity, while the rest of her grandma’s whole family were herded to the camp and got killed. She said that her grandma used to tell her how the night air was filled with the strong smell when the dead bodies in the camp were burnt nightly. She told me how her mom has the habit of keeping diary, and on an impulse of that, I reached for my cell phone with my blog page, showing her my recent visit to Seattle and Oregon, mostly the pictures of course, as she could not read Chinese, and the English version is too small to read in the dimly lit bus.
At a little over 6, the bus arrived at the destination. A white color medium sized boat decked with bright white Christmas lights was anchored by. It is a three floored boat, with the top deck opening to the night wind. About thirty minutes after we boarded, the boat started moving. After a self-served dinner of beef, chicken and some vegies, people rose to the second deck, where stands of poker games were set on one side and dancing music on the other end. The music, along with the compressed noisy talks, were so deafening it almost drowned the voice from the loudspeaker, announcing the winning number for the raffles. My game ticket was also given away to a co-worker, and not much interested in the dancing in the crowd, I followed the narrow stairs up to the third floor. The sea breeze was invigoratingly fresh. Strolling on the deck, passing by a handful of employees, greeting or hugging one or two old ones, I then walked to the end and enjoyed a moment of solitude. The holiday decorated bays, in their red, blue and white lights, glowed in the dark. Occasionally, another boat in the similar glimmering vibe, glided by us. High above, a full moon perched. I stared into it for a minute or so, adoring the splendor of full moon, the final full moon (12/12/2019) in the decade.
An old co-worker approached me and suggested going down to the main deck. A flight of steep narrow stairs led us back to the second floor, where 80 percent of people thronged for games or dancing. Before we turned back in, we stopped at the front open deck. Stirred in the wind was a pungent marijuana odor someone must have smoked blatantly. Though it is legalized now to smoke it, in this context, apparently the conduct is far from being appropriate. Minutes later, an informed HR executive stepped in for an investigation, claiming that she would have fired the offender(s) if she caught them on the spot.
Inside the boat, people went on wriggling to the music. The game tables were still surrounded by players and watchers. The noises did not die down until the boat was back in the dock around 9:15 pm.
This year, the early winter rain at the end of November continued into December. When it finally cleared up this past Saturday, I dragged him along for a hike in the nearby valley that we used to frequent. It was almost 11 am when we set out, but the sun was not out yet. Under the leaden sky, the valley covered with the withered lifeless mustard from the last spring looked dull. However, in this deadly looking winter, spring is poking its head. New grasses shoot up from the ground, a few resilient wildflowers are blooming off the wilted twigs. We hiked and relished at the sight, knowing that the best is yet to come.
真是被暖冬妹妹的文字感動了，讀到你波蘭同事母親家的故事，感慨萬千！真是慶幸我們現在生活在一片講民主自由平等，也不會因言獲罪的土地，但也還是要隨時警惕納粹三K黨，白人至上主義的抬頭。
退出職場很多年了，當年公司聖誕是邀請配偶 or special one 一起參加聖誕Party的。也就是租個Hotel，大吃一頓，賭博，抽獎，喝酒，唱歌，跳舞。公司提供Taxi送喝醉的員工回家的。抽獎可以抽到各樣禮品，禮券，包括Hotel免費裏券。退休後的日子過得真快，一眨眼，又到了聖誕，感謝文城有緣遇到善良，友好，好文筆的暖冬妹妹，也祝妹妹闔家節日快樂，安康如意！
暖冬好，美國到底是一個大熔爐，來自世界各地的人都聚集在一起，仿佛每個人的身後都有很多獨特的經曆和故事，就像你的這位猶太後裔同事，還有我們這些來自中國的移民。。。。
party 總是吵吵鬧鬧的，吃吃喝喝，唱歌跳舞，打牌喝酒，其實不搞這些，好像也沒啥好熱鬧了。不過，暖冬有自己獨特的慶祝節日方式，是完全可以理解的，喜歡清靜的人很多，比如那些沒去的同事基本就是：））。
回複 'ziqiao123' 的評論 : 謝謝子喬指正，你厲害，你是對的，solitude is a noun, which I must have confused with an adjective. So a moment of solitude is right, while mine is grammatically incorrect. 我知道我會出不少錯的，等女兒回來讓她在忙著挑挑。我現在中英文都寫，英文是重點，子喬知我。高科技還是美國經濟的支柱，不過現在華爾街要的是盈利，所以公司不可能總是那麽鋪張，我想。祝子喬節日快樂！
暖冬cool夏 發表評論於
回複 '7grizzly' 的評論 : Thanks, my friend. I know you are right. Actually I know this word, flung=fling (v.), and I questioned this word for a second without checking the dictionary again. I must have confused this with a word that contains "-ung" to describe a ladder. Thanks so much for pointing out. I will remember to practice more to minimize the mistakes. You don't have to learn dancing. You have enough sports and exercise:)) Thanks again my friend. Happy holidays!
那兩個毛球球是什麽東西？你們公司有多少人，一艘船夠嗎？我們公司的holiday party一年不如一年。感覺整個矽穀也遠不如當年的盛況。暖冬現在主要focus 在英文寫作上了；）請教一個問題，“a moment of being solitude”，being是不是可以省略？
7grizzly 發表評論於
My workplace had something similar on the night Tim and I went to see A Prairie Home Companion.
I never enjoyed drinking parties and I couldn't dance. Maybe I should learn. It should be good exercise.
> a flung of steep narrow stair
Did you mean "a flight of steep narrow stairs"?
回複 'Once-always' 的評論 : Oncemm好! 給你沏茶，暖暖身子。我這文如果不上首頁也是沒什麽人看的，自己記錄下來。船開得很慢，倒是沒什麽感覺，不覺得晃，隻是沒什麽新意的。不過，人生到我這個年齡，或許萬事都沒什麽新意了，對你而言，the best is yet to come,好好享受人生吧，人生真是太匆匆了。寫錯字在我很正常，我還是第一次看到你寫錯字，小說什麽都沒有過任何錯字，可見你的功底。謝謝mm惦記，希望你早日康複痊愈，過一個快樂的聖誕新年！ All my best wishes!
Once-always 發表評論於
oh, 一激動下麵寥寥幾字好多typo. 暖mm你們公司party好啊，坐船看夜景，多美。船晃人也晃，都不用喝酒了。：） 沒想到你們的春天都要來了，而我們的冬天剛剛開始。接近年關，總有些傷感，喜歡你的最後一句，the best is yet to come. 這麽一想，也就不再感慨時間的流逝了。我馬上又要party去了，直到今天身體還沒恢複，就去湊湊熱鬧，爭取早點回家休息。祝暖mm一切好！
A dark colored newly looking bus was awaiting by the road curb when I exited the company building around 5 pm. One bus with 50 seats was first arranged to take us to the boat for the Christmas Party, and later another bus was added when more people chose to take the bus instead of driving on their own. Taking the bus is preferably a better choice to me, as it is hassle free, not to worry about directions, traffic or parking.
I seated myself next to the co-worker U, a plump lady twice my size. Being fairly new to the company, she was coaxed by me to attend the party by my promise of giving her my two alcoholic drink tickets each employee is entitled to. When the bus started to crawl in the rush hour traffic, our conversations flowed on. Her background of being an immigrant from Poland to Canada, and then Canada to the U.S. made the exchange of immigration experience viable and a good topic. Her U. S green card petition took only a year, while mine almost seven painful years. But then a story of how her dad fled from communist Poland to Canada, and how after two years of separation (under the close watch and restriction of the Polish government) they were united on the free land unfolded to me. When I asked about the concentration camp in Poland, another appalling story was revealed, a story of how her grandma, a Jew, by marrying to a non-Jewish grandfather survived the atrocity, while the rest of her grandma’s whole family were herded to the camp and got killed. She said that her grandma used to tell her how the night air was filled with the strong smell when the dead bodies in the camp were burnt nightly. She told me how her mom has the habit of keeping diary, and on an impulse of that, I reached for my cell phone with my blog page, showing her my recent visit to Seattle and Oregon, mostly the pictures of course, as she could not read Chinese, and the English version is too small to read in the dimly lit bus.
At a little over 6, the bus arrived at the destination. A white color medium sized boat decked with bright white Christmas lights was anchored by. It is a three floored boat, with the top deck opening to the night wind. About thirty minutes after we boarded, the boat started moving. After a self-served dinner of beef, chicken and some vegies, people rose to the second deck, where stands of poker games were set on one side and dancing music on the other end. The music, along with the compressed noisy talks, were so deafening it almost drowned the voice from the loudspeaker, announcing the winning number for the raffles. My game ticket was also given away to a co-worker, and not much interested in the dancing in the crowd, I followed the narrow stairs up to the third floor. The sea breeze was invigoratingly fresh. Strolling on the deck, passing by a handful of employees, greeting or hugging one or two old ones, I then walked to the end and enjoyed a moment of solitude. The holiday decorated bays, in their red, blue and white lights, glowed in the dark. Occasionally, another boat in the similar glimmering vibe, glided by us. High above, a full moon perched. I stared into it for a minute or so, adoring the splendor of full moon, the final full moon (12/12/2019) in the decade.
An old co-worker approached me and suggested going down to the main deck. A flight of steep narrow stairs led us back to the second floor, where 80 percent of people thronged for games or dancing. Before we turned back in, we stopped at the front open deck. Stirred in the wind was a pungent marijuana odor someone must have smoked blatantly. Though it is legalized now to smoke it, in this context, apparently the conduct is far from being appropriate. Minutes later, an informed HR executive stepped in for an investigation, claiming that she would have fired the offender(s) if she caught them on the spot.
Inside the boat, people went on wriggling to the music. The game tables were still surrounded by players and watchers. The noises did not die down until the boat was back in the dock around 9:15 pm.
This year, the early winter rain at the end of November continued into December. When it finally cleared up this past Saturday, I dragged him along for a hike in the nearby valley that we used to frequent. It was almost 11 am when we set out, but the sun was not out yet. Under the leaden sky, the valley covered with the withered lifeless mustard from the last spring looked dull. However, in this deadly looking winter, spring is poking its head. New grasses shoot up from the ground, a few resilient wildflowers are blooming off the wilted twigs. We hiked and relished at the sight, knowing that the best is yet to come.
