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Tis The Season, Garden Party Season

This weekend is garden party/lawn party central.  Well, I have two parties.  One was yesterday/last night and then another is today.

I also went out to go do Karaoke with my friend Jess.  So that was fun.  It was Jess and a whole bunch of her friends too.  It was a whole lot of fun.  Jess moved to Florida but she was back in town for a night because of work.

Apparently she likes it down there... As she put it "I found myself a sweet souther boy"  She said.  She's like... "You have to move South and find yourself a sweet southern girl".  I'm like, we'll see.

I'd love to find a girl, sweet southern or otherwise.  Ideally I'd like to just find someone that lives nearby, but that's kind of why love is so strange and weird and mysterious and finds you when it does and the way it does.  You can't predict or control love.  When you find someone... You just find them.  And they could live ANYWHERE in the world.  Or when love finds you rather.

I have lots of friends that carried on relationships via Skype with someone that lived thousands of miles away.  Logically you'd think, why not just go out and do things around town where you live and meet someone at a local Karaoke spot... Nope.  Love has other plans.  Love is going to make you meet someone that has entirely different music tastes, and lives halfway around the world, and likes entirely different kinds of foods and movies and has a totally different outlook on life.

You like spicy?  They will like no spice.  You like dark chocolate, they like milk.  You like to have a small gathering in one on one, they like to have massive parties.  You like comedy movies, they like action films.

It's just how it goes.

As of right now I have no plans to move south.  I have no plans to move anywhere really unless some crazy good reason suddenly makes me move.  When you own a house it makes you less likely to be mobile.  Especially when there's no mortgage.  And your job is 10 minutes away.  Some of my friends that moved new places had like... An apartment and jobs they didn't really have any real attachment to, or jobs they hated.  Obviously I've been at my job for 10 years now so and so it's just one of those things where it'd be tough to leave those people behind.  My job as SUPER low turnover rate.  Some of the people have been there 20 or 30 years... or more.  People just stay.  Plus I do things the way I like to do them.  In my department... I basically oversee certain things and I deploy tech and manage tech the way that I see fit.  I can listen to my tech podcasts and learn to things and ideas and come in to work the next day and can basically kick ideas around.

It's a level of safety.  When you're on a team where you can basically just speak your mind and don't have to worry about backlash of any kind.  That's a good work environment.  Where you just can basically not be afraid to say you don't know something if you don't, or you can say, I think we should do this or that and you don't have any fear of possibly losing your job because of it.

Who knows, maybe a lot of work places are that way.  But maybe not.  That's kind of why I stay at my job and keep working at the camp as well for 2 weeks.  It's just a fun environment.

Really the only issue I've ever had with this area is the dating thing.  But I feel like even south, I'd probably still have trouble dating.  Love finds you. You don't find it.  When it's time for me... That one special girl will walk into my life.  That forever girl will just show up and we'll both just never want to let each other get away.  It will just happen like that.

So, for now I'm here and attending garden parties of my coworkers.  Yesterday was fun, it was just like a never-ending cookout.  There's just phases of food.  People just keep throwing new things on to cook when one thing finishes.  It was my direct coworker's party.  So we work together in the same department.  Mostly it was his family and relatives and friends from back where he's from in Botswana.  It's cool though to hang out with all of them.  I went last year and met a lot of the people I saw this year.  Good times.

Today at 4 is the librarian's party.  This one doesn't go all night like the one yesterday.  If I didn't leave for Karaoke I'd probably have stayed till dawn.

This is more low key.  It's just like a smaller deal with croquet setup.  So, I'm going to get ready and head out to that.

Summer is the time for outdoor parties!  And outdoor activities like Nightscape, which starts in August.  I renewed my Longwood Gardens membership so I'll be heading there at least a couple times for Nightscape.  Good times.  And my running and listening to podcasts in Valley Forge Park.  And the Gryphon cafe.

See, and if I moved somewhere new, I'd have to find all these cool places I go to now to go out and do things.  I did promise Jess last night I would break my "no step foot in Florida rule" and fly down to Jacksonville.

I guess Florida just... Has a bad taste in my mouth type of deal for me.  Old trustee lives there... And of course Kara lives there.  So basically to me?  Florida sucked away my family money, and it sucked away love.  And now it has sucked away one of my best friends.

Dammit Florida!  Stop sucking things away from me!  You suck, to me at least.  You'll never suck me in though.  I won't get sucked into that state.  No way, no how.  I plan to stay up north.  Maybe I'll consider moving back west or something.  But for now... I'm good in good old PA.