Party weekend

Sandwiched around the fabulous Sharon Jones concert this weekend were a couple of big P-I events: the annual holiday party on Saturday evening and the wedding of a couple of friends from the paper on Sunday. Both were good parties -- the wedding, especially, was very cool.

Saturday's holiday party was at the Museum of History and Industry, or MOHAI as it's known here in Seattle. It's part of a tradition at this paper of holding the Christmas-season parties at places that aren't especially festive. An exception was last year when they held it at a cool new Asian restaurant in a skyscraper downtown; excellent food and drink at that one. Before that, since Michelle and I have been at the paper, one P-I party was at the new downtown public library (terrible), another at Pacific Science Center, a sort of kids museum/activity center by the Space Needle.

Setting aside, the evening's always a nice, low-key backdrop for non-work chat and a glass of wine. I've actually enjoyed the parties more, I think, since I've been off work. It's more fun to see people when you haven't just sat through a boring meeting with them the day before.

On Sunday evening, we took Gina and Franny with us to the wedding of Claudia Rowe, a P-I reporter, and Dan Kearney, an editor at the paper. The wedding was on the Skansonia, an old, docked ferry at the north end of Lake Union, which was very nicely decked out and turned out to be a great spot to get married. The bride and groom were radiant with joy, the ceremony itself (presided over by a friend, the husband of another reporter at work), was light and funny and personal and engaging; just right. And the food was terrific. A 4-glioma wedding, for sure.

The girls were a bit of a hit too. I was almost embarrassed, with so many people telling me how beautiful they looked. But it was true, and very cool and sophisticated-seeming too (nice trick!). And when I think back on the last time most of these P-I folks saw G&F, as cute but much younger-seeming girls at the public-library party, I see why they were so impressed.

One strange conversational tic I noticed at both weekend events, especially Saturday's party, was the intrusion of Facebook. As I noted in an earlier post, that social-networking site has recently beat its little wildfire path through our friends and workmates. But being a cynical bunch of old journalists, we're all a little chagrined that we've been caught up in it, I think. So I heard many snippets the other night of reporters apologetically explaining why they have a Facebook profile -- I needed to sign up to track a source or find a document or keep an eye on my kids -- before trading knowing jokes about something posted on each other's "wall," or the latest "Scrabulous" game, or a long-lost (but now Facebooked!) friend.

Man, I said at one point, the only thing more pathetic than the fact that we're all on Facebook is that when we actually see each other in person we stand around talking about it.

We all laughed ... and then promised to Facebook each other pictures of the party, which has been happening ever since. Goofy.

For those without a Facebook account, I'm going to go really old-school and put up a few pics here on the blog. Here you go. Party on!

M&M at the P-I holiday party.


P-I colleagues Chris Grygiel and Caroline Chen


Photographers Karen Ducey of the P-I and Dean Rutz of the Seattle Times. Dean had his own experience with neurosurgery, and they were very cool and helpful to me when I was going through mine.


Radiant bride Claudia Rowe and retired P-I writer Mary Lynn Lyke


Latest in my long-running series capturing Michelle with P-I reporter (and West Seattle friend) Angela Galloway


Our boss and friend David McCumber, at the wedding with his adorable kids Dylan and Katie


The fabulous Gina and Franny at the wedding (and Michelle's not so bad either)


For the sake of comparison: Gina and Franny at the library party, December 2005