The Extreme Heat And The Company Picnic

Well this week has been an interesting one. I didn’t even know we were in a heat wave till Friday. You see I sit in comfort in my home with the A/C on 24/7. Most smart people do. Like HELL-LLO? Why suffer? Anyways I only go out in the mornings and so I never know how hot it actually gets. And when I do leave the house it’s from my air conditioned apartment, to my underground parking, to my car with A/C, pick up Dan, back to the underground parking, to the A/C filled home. So I never noticed on Friday just how hot it got until I was on my way to pick up Dan from work and the temperature read, (on one of those signs with the time and the temperature on it) 40 Celsius (105 F)!!! I was like, “ya right, it’s not that hot outside”. Well we went out to grab a bite that night and as soon as I stepped out of my car, I thought I was gonna pass out. It was hotter than, well……you know what I’m talking about. I couldn’t believe it. I know it’s like a “duh” to all of you out there, but seriously I was in total shock at just how hot it was outside. Anyways I heard that it was supposed to be hotter, if not just as hot, on Saturday. Well GREAT! That’s the day of the Microsoft company picnic. Which brings me to the picnic.

We went to the picnic, which was out in North Bend WA, with Jacki & Terence. It was a pretty cloudy day so we were all thinking it was gonna be cooler out there (again from air conditioned house to air conditioned car). Well we got there around 11:30am and I swear with all of the humidity, it was just as hot as if the sun was beating down on you at high noon. It was again, hotter than, well...you know what I’m talking about. We walked around for a bit trying to find the food booths (cause we were all starving) about ready to pass out already from all of the heat. By the way, it’s still totally cloudy out. Anyways so we find the food section and wow. Okay so I’ve never been to a company picnic this huge before (they had to have it on 2 consecutive days cause there’s so many employees) and I figured they’d have like hamburgers and hot dogs and ice cream or whatever. Well they did, as well as about 25 other booths of different stuff. Let’s see I tried the beef stir-fry (which was alright) and I had a bite of a really gross chicken sandwich, ate a few of kinda disgusting roasted potatoes, and then I decided to be like everyone else and had a cheeseburger. But I only ate about two-thirds of it cause I really wanted ice cream. The ice cream was kinda gross too, only cause it was melting as soon as you got it (Ice cream sandwiches and ice-cream on a stick- what us Canadians call Revellos). Well anyways I tell you all of the stuff I tried and didn’t like, cause the beauty of it was that it was all FREE! So if you didn’t like anything I didn’t feel any guilt throwing it away. That’s what I tried so many things. I would’ve tried more except for the fact that it was SO hot out and we had no where to sit really. But I’ll tell you of some other stuff they had. They had BBQ Ribs (that I so desperately wanted to try cause they looked SO scrumptious!) Watermelon, Vegetarian Curry, Hot Dogs, Brownies & Shortcake, Caesar Salad, Pasta Salad, and a lot of other stuff that I can’t remember now. Alls I know is that they had about 20-25 booths of different foods.

Anyways after that we sat at the main stage where there were actually tables available in the shade and we listened to this dude play songs, and he wasn’t that great. Okay so he basically sucked, but I’m trying not to be mean. Anyways we were all saying that we wasn’t’ that great to listen to and I was all like, “Whatever the company paid for him, he wasn’t worth it!”. Then he finished one song and he’s like, “now here’s one from my album”, and we all look at each other like, “He’s got an album?” YEESH!!! I don’t think I need to be reminded not to buy that CD!

Anyways we walked around a bit. Most of the stuff there was for kids and the rest of the stuff was all stuff that you had to wait in line for. Like especially the thing that I wanted the most was a free massage, but there was an hour wait for that and we weren’t about to get sweatier than we already were and then go get a massage an hour later. So we decided to leave. I think we were only there for an hour and a half. Too long if you ask me! Well, I was enjoying myself, but I couldn’t stop complaining about the heat. I’d even dumped at least 2 bottles of the free water we got, on myself. Didn’t help one bit. Anyways just as we were leaving, the sun started to come out. Thank goodness we were leaving!

It was fun though. I’m not sure we’ll go next year. It wasn’t even worth the free food. I’m not even sure if we’d go if we had kids. Maybe when they’re older and they can run off by themselves. Or if they had Karaoke, then I’d be ALL over that!