Can I just say that today I went to about the nicest retirement party ever? I have been to a few. I have been to bland buffets and cash bars in banquet halls and I have been to small affairs in nice restaurants and once a couple of long time EPA employees arranged to be helicoptered off the EPA roof and there was music and dancing at that one. I didn’t go to The Pensioner’s event at all. I can’t even exactly remember what it was. Lunch or drinks or something. I’m sure he was happy with it. I know he didn’t want a whole bunch of folderol.

The Queen Bee’s retirement party? It was today and can I just say that she herself provided the entertainment?

Like The Pensioner, she did not want a whole big bunch of folderol. She didn’t want a big fancy event somewhere and she implored The Benevolent Despot not to say a bunch of nice things about her. He of course turned that on its head, pointing out all of the reasons we were “getting rid” of her. You had to be there and if we weren’t all a big bunch of nerds, there wouldn’t have been a dry eye in the house. We are gonna miss the QB. She has something like 40 years with the company (actually several companies, as the fintech industry has morphed over the years, I myself have worked for the most recent two) and she is greatly beloved by many.

The party? Well, we had a release celebration with a pizza lunch in one of the large conference rooms but that wasn’t really all about the QB although she was given her last “award”. Later in the afternoon, there were baked goods from Zingerman’s in the lunch room for everyone in the building, quite a few of whom worked with the QB in some of her earlier incarnations. She played her harp for the duration and beyond and her husband (who works there too and also plays the harp) took over when people (like me) started asking her a gazillion questions about playing the harp. She was making me think about dusting off my musical instruments again (and buying a harp?) but we’ll talk about that some other day… … …

She has also been passing out gifts. I refused the BAI documentation that she had collected and bound with one o’ them thar handy dandy binding musheens. I remember when we were all learning about BAI files, their structure and format. Nowadays I could spout off BAI file structure and format at length and at the drop of a hat. I don’t need that documentation and she knows it. But she also printed out copies of the diagram below for all of us and it is now hanging in my cube. I will frame it after I [eventually] leave that place.

I did not create this diagram. My handwriting is much more meticulous than that even on a bad day. The guy who DID create it (FZ) is a GENIUS! Is this diagram easy to follow? No, it is not. But follow it we did, one chunk at a time, which is how you eat an elephant. A number of years ago we embarked upon a prodject to move a major piece of functionality onto a new platform. We are almost there now and this was our starting point.

And so, when I got home tonight, there were various recyclables sitting around including a sales receipt from a pet supply store. What?!? What pet? It turns out that one of The Pensioner’s Prodjects today was to create a terrarium and he needed activated charcoal.

Apparently he picked this big jug out of someone’s trash. I had seen it from the bathroom window and was kind of wondering where it came from. I love the terrarium. I won’t detail some of our earlier conversations in which I bugged the GG to make a Kiwanis run tomorrow morning and then asked him to impulse-buy a garden peacock at Downtown Home and Garden as a buddy for ‘hicken. I am not into buying a lot of stuff but I covet the peacock. And the terrarium bottle is okay with me too. I do want to get rid of some of the billion lamps we have around here but maybe that needs to wait for a future entry.

Love you all. Especially love the Queen Bee (who doesn’t read this blahg of blather). -Kayak Woman

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