random thoughts – Day 1,303 – (Wednesday) – winning

Overgrown and blooming.

The ride to work was uneventful. The walk from the garage included a moment outside the little garden that sites between two buildings on John Street. It used to be neatly manicured and cared for, but lately that isn't the case. It's overgrown, and littered with beer bottles and other trash. Despite the lack of care, red roses are still blooming, winning despite the mess.

Wednesdays are usually fun with everyone being in the office. Today there were a couple of people out, but there was a basket of bagged pretzels and a bowl of miniature Almond Joys and Mounds. Copious candy consumption occurred during work hours. A bit of pretzel plus a bit of Mounds is a tasty treat of salty and sweet for the win. 

After work there was a dinner event in the next won over. The volume of cars leaving the garage was significantly heavier than usual, and I recognized several bankers flowing into the street traffic.

At the event, there was time to socialize, a delicious buffet dinner, and a bar with Aperol Spritzes, which three of us at our table enjoyed. The centerpieces featured fresh flowers. And there were raffles. So many raffles. Attendees were given a long strip of raffle tickets at check-in and there were two long tables loaded with the raffle items and buckets to receive the entries.

Ready to travel!

For a couple years, the entire fourth floor of our building was cursed with not winning anything in the various raffles throughout the year. Tonight was different. 

One person at our table won one of two Dyson vacuums, an item which had inspired a surprising number of exclaims of “Wow, that’s great vacuum!” at the ticket drops. Someone else from our team won an iPad, another won a camera, another won a fire pit, and I won Southwest Airline gift cards. The curse is broken. Hooray! 

Now I can do some of the traveling I been not doing for about a decade. And it’s time to pay closer attention to the weekly Southwest emails with the airfare specials.