Friday and Saturday with Colleagues and Friends

By the time we were ready for bed last night, I was too pooped to post, so today's diary entry will need to cover two days.
Had a full day of work yesterday: a productive meeting with the marketing folks about plans for marketing the magazines in 2013. I'm as encouraged about those efforts as I've been in a long time.
The four directors in the product development depart at Standard took our boss, Matt Lockhart, to lunch as a belated Boss's Day thank you. We went to BD's Mongolian grill; it's a place where you get a bowl that you can fill with your choice of meat, seafood, and vegetables arranged salad-bar style in two long, double-sided buffets. Then a third buffet holds a whole host of various sauces: sweet, savory, or spicey. You get a little cup into which you ladle whatever combination of the sauces you'd like. Then you give your bowl of food and the sauce to a cook working around a six-foot diameter round grill. He stir fries your food and just before it's finished pours your sauce over it and then scoops it onto a platter. You take it back to your seat and eat it with brown or white rice or tortillas. It's a big meal and a fun, different way to choose your meal.
But I managed to be hungry for supper. Bill and Verna Weber came over--we didn't eat till almost seven. For dessert I had picked up a pumpkin cake roll from Graeter's. We'd never had one of those from them before. It was yummy!
Today was my first Saturday at home in awhile, and it was good to be here. A low-key day: paid bills, Skyped with Wendy, went to the grocery store, practiced piano (I'm playing at the Classic service tomorrow), started reading a book assigned to those participating in our Stone-Campbell Dialogue retreat in November.

This evening we went to Jim and Becky Snyder's place for their annual bonfire and picnic. It was rainy and raw this morning, but the clouds cleared and we had a perfect evening for the bonfire: chilly enough to enjoy the fire but warm enough to be comfortable. We cooked hot dogs over the fire and ate goodies brought by the several who were there. It was pleasant fellowship and good food. The mood was made a little somber by another round of layoffs at CCU yesterday. "I feel like I'm on Survivor," one of the professors at the bonfire said. Evelyn and I wouldn't have been surprised if she had been among the cuts, especially since she's planning to retire at the end of this year anyway. But she, too, has survived for now.

The inimitable Jim Snyder is NOT a hot dog,
but he dressed the part at the bonfire
he and his wife hosted tonight.