Bureau Cats Know How to Party ! W00t!

Oh-My-God. Let me first say that I'm drunkity-drunk-drunk. I'll edit anythink that doesn't make sense tomorrow :D To help you put in the mood : I'm drinking a bottle of Yellow Tail Australian Shiraz. I'm reading the back label on the bottle for the first time.

On sweeping alluvial plains formed by the great Murray River Basin, nature's rich sun-drenched vineyards and leaping kangaroos perfectly co-exist in this wondrous habitat. This is the essence of our landscape in South Eastern Australia embodied in our perfectly well-balanced fine wines, [yellow tail].

(Does this mean that there is a possibility that a kangaroo peed on the grapes from which my current glass of wine was made ?)

The Shiraz bounds forward from the glass with berry and vanilla oak aromas. Subdued earthly tones with soft ripe sweetness are displayed in perfect harmony with fine tannins. This is a great Aussi Red that will complement pasta, steak or even af illet of kangaroo steak.

(Well, I will never know about the last one there will I ? )

Okay, on to the regularly scheduled program. I had tons to talk about and now I'm drawing a blank. Oh, right. The staff meeting was absolutely amazing. First, I'm really impressed by our new deputy minister. (We got a new minister in last week's shuffle too, did I tell you that ?) I think everyone was impressed by him. This is who we needed years ago. I think that he will be shaking things up. I could already feel a huge difference in people's levels of motivation. Heck, you could SMELL the motivation!

Oh yeah, before I forget, I have to say what just happened a few minutes ago. My bottle stopper broke inside the bottle neck. ACK! It's a knob thingy on a cork thingy, and the cork thingy broke in half. Steph tried to fish it out with the bottle opener, and what he achieved was pushing the 1/2 cork right inside the bottle, bobbing in the wine. Chantal and me came to the conclusion, that the cork won't kill me. Unless of course I choke on it, which I won't since it's stuck in the bottle.

So yeah. The staff meeting. Was incredible. First of all, it was held at Le Complexe des 2 rivieres.
We each had own own cottage. It was really nice although no one got much sleep. It would have been much nicer in the summer of course. But seeing the sunrise over the frozen river was amazing nonetheless. The meetings were incredibly productive. Much more so than the last meetings I've attended in the last 4 years. For once I really think that our strategies are clear and that we finally know where we're going and what we want to achieve. Er.. oh yeah let's talk about the party.

After we adjourned on the first day, we all met in cottage #24 for a wine, cheese and oyster bar. Yummification! Raw ones or au gratin. I prefer au gratin. Chef Albert (aka my boss) was in charge of the gratin ones. He cooked them just perfectly. Not undercooked, but still very much in it's natural texture. It was delicious. We had an 8 passenger mini van shuttle us to La Maison de la Fondue for dinner. It was great, exept that I thought we were going to have Fondue hehe. We were served roasted tomato-herb stuffed chicken breasts with some sort of pilaf-like rice for our entree. The mayor joined us there so that was nice of him. After dinner we got shuttled back to cottage #24 to finish off the alcohol hehe. That party was awesome! In fact surprisingly, that party was probably the funnest party I've ever been to LOL Well, actually I should specify the funnest adult (as in non teenager) party. I don't think I could handle another teenager party hehe. Those were crazy times. But wednesday was a crazy night too hehe.

Our director was playing guitar, we were singing and dancing like idiots. No really. Like idiots. Imagine drunk bureaucrats trying to dance couples rock n' roll. One of my managers toes' must still be blue. I warned my coworker Graham that I had just stepped on M's toes multiple times and he said "Oh that's okay dear, I'm wearing steel toed boots" LOL. The bottles of wine seemed bottomless. Everyone had too much to drink. Oh the weather was gorgeous too. It was really warm. (Especially for the smokers.) Even Judy sang. "Oh, I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow" It was awesome! hehehe

As every other times I've partied hard with my collegues, we were all up and alert at 8am when teh meetings resumed as if nothing had ever happened. hehe. OH! I have to tell you about the uber embarrassment. All our meals were catered by La Maison de la Fondue, and we went actually there for dinner. Guess who is a server there. My ex-best-friend-turned-ex-boyfriend-turned-gay ex. D. When our eyes met when I first walked in for lunch on the first day, we both seemed genuinely glad to see each other. But by the time he was asking me if I cared for more coffee, it was starting to get embarrassing. Then when we were eating dinner, Judy asked me " Do you know that guy" ? Wanting to keep things short, I said " Yeah, kinda". As I said those words D passes behind me and squeezes my shoulder. ACK!

Oh and I saw my aunt that works there as a room attendant, I hadn't seen her since my wedding!! It's a sin. It's only 3 hours away. Unfortunately, she too seemed embarrassed that she was actually going to have to clean my room. ugh. Have you ever had to deal with anything like this ? (We're bound to go there again, everyone is still raving about it.) She said that her and my uncle would try to come see me in the evening. Great! I said. I'm in cottage #10. I foung out earlier that I didn't have cottage #10 after all, I had #16. I told my coworker G that if some randome aunt and uncle show up, to direct them to #16 hehe. We only got back to our cottages past 2am though, so I have no idea if they actually came. When I explained this to my aunt, D was standing beside us and said "Oh it's a good thing I didn't decide to go see you during the night then!". WHAT? wtf. He would have found my [male] coworker G. Maybe he would have preferred that after all hehe.

So yeah, I think I should stop writing before I start to divulge too much information LOL