The Banquet

I have just been informed by my brother-n-law that my mother's blog is better than mine. Seems she has set the blogging bar a little higher. So what do I have to blog about? Well, I've been tossing around some ideas to try to make it more interesting. Also, Charles has started a blog of his own. He has asked me to type a story while he dictates to me. We are not finished with his "sci-fi" novel yet, but when we do, we will certainly publish it via my blog site for your viewing pleasure.

Over this past weekend (Fri. 13th) I was invited by Annette to attend a banquet for ORMC employees. It was to be held at the Contemporary Resort in Disney. The cash bar opened at 6:30 and dinner was to be served at 7:30.

Charles and I arrived in town about 5pm and I got ready. I wore a sexy black skirt with a slanted ruffle on bottom and black shirt with butterflies also slanted the same way on the bottom. I had silver & black jewelry, a silver purse and silver & black strappy shoes. Annette wore black pants, a black sequined top, gold shoes, a gold purse and her favorite jewelry.

Charles was going to the circus with his cousin Crystal, her boyfriend Jason and his son, Jason Jr. so we set him up with some spending money and set out about 6pm in hopes of making it there about 6:45 or so. The traffic was much worse than we anticipated and it ended up taking us a AN HOUR AND A HALF including a wrong turn that took us 4 minutes off course due to unclear instructions on the invitation. Unbelievable! That is why I don't live in Orlando anymore. We got there, decided to valet park and walked into the ballroom. Luckily, they still weren't serving dinner yet due to the fact that a lot of people were still stuck in traffic.

Annette found some coworkers and we got a seat near the back with 6 other people we didn't know.

Quick run down:10 people per table, beautiful setting, caesar salad, crusty bread, Chicken, 2 large shrimp, rice, asparagus, squash, dessert. Of course they all had really long sounding names like, "Asparagus spears marinated with dijon butter", so it sounded like more but it was really good. Of course I had to be the klutz of the table pulling a "wish I looked like Julia Roberts/pretty woman escargot toss" because my shrimp slipped out from underneath my knife.

Anyway some guy talked and honored the veterans employees from 5 years to 45 years, concentrating heavily on the 30, 35, 40 & 45 years. Annette has been there 32 years so she will be due for her 35th soon and will have to walk up in front of about 500 people again. All in all that part only took about an hour. I was sipping coffee, talking to the colored couple next to me so and admiring all of the fancy outfits so I didn't mind sitting through it.

Next they had some "entertainment group", Vocal something or other I think. 3 guys and 2 girl (Annette, leave the name of the group in the comments section below) They performed with no music and sang songs like "Turn the beat Around" and "Put the Lime in the Coconut". Two of the guys were making the music with their mouths. It sounded so real. There was a hot little chinese guy who was fantastic and did several solos including a "DJ record scratch" routine. I was impressed and we were both kind of glad to be in the back because it was pretty loud.

When it was over we stood in the long valet line and waited to get the car. ORMC footed the valet bill with exception of the tip. How nice. We got home around 11 and Crystal & Charles were waiting wearily. Charles fell right asleep (once he knew I was home) and us ladies sat around chatting. We got to bed pretty late and slept hard dreaming of epcot (our trip the next day) and my next blog.