brooches and ouches

IMG-20120616-01565.jpg, a photo by karlakp on Flickr

Me all dressed up for the big company party last night. (I wish I photographed better, but the dress looks nice.) There's a story about the brooches on my dress....

(edit)(the next day)
Last night my company had a big 50 year birthday party extravaganza. It was quite the shindig. We were all told to dress formal, so most of us showed up pretty well kitted out. I had planned to wear a long dress, but the weather was crap and I didn't really feel like worrying about the hem of my dress in wet, so I wore the shorter dress, above, instead. I like that dress, it's really comfortable and does good things for my curves. I went the extra mile and wore it with fishnets, it looks good like that.

Anyhow, if you look closely you will see there is a brooch at my waist, and if you look closer, you might see that there is another one just like it at my shoulder. The brooch is a vintage cameo with bronze rhinestones and filigree by HAR, just like this one on ebay, in fact. (That link probably won't be there long.) When I was in England, I went to Stratford-upon-Avon with my friends Jan and Pete, and we happened upon a little arts/crafts/vintage market right by the theatre in the middle of town. One table was nothing but vintage jewelry (a weakness of mine, one of many). I saw the brooch and realized, hmm, I think I have one of those. The lady selling the jewelry was very knowledgeable, and in general, jewelry geeks recognize each other as fellow souls, so we fell to talking about jewelry and so on, and she told me the history of the brooch, and was fair blown away when I told her that I already had one. It had been my grandmother's, my Omi, who had astoundingly good taste in all things, but especially in jewelry and brooches. (Though maybe, of course, I say her taste is so good because it is MY taste, most likely genetically inherited from her. It is scary how much alike she and I were in our tastes for things.)

So I bought the brooch, as an homage to my grandmother and also thinking it might be cool to have a matched set. And, yep, it matched perfectly the one I already had, so last night's outfit was decorated with my grandmother's brooch and the one I bought in England, a perfect set, and I honestly think my grandmother would have approved.

Even though I was looking rather elegant and grown up, these company parties always, by the end of the evening, devolve into nothing more than a bunch of well-dressed former teenagers acting up and being stupid. It's a mix of factors: Norwegian penchant for drinking until you can't stand up anymore, Norwegian hospitality which demands lashings of alcohol and the reciprocal appreciation of that alcohol by guzzling as much of it as possible (also, it's free, better get it now!), the party starting very early (5pm!) and lasting very late (2am!), too long of a delay until dinner and then not enough food when it does come (we were STARVING and were about ready to go get cheeseburgers after the tiny appetizer).  Dinner was a three course affair, the food was good, but there just wasn't enough of it.

So, by the time dinner was over, people were in rare form from the drink. Once the dance floor opened, it was pretty crazy, and I don't think the dance floor was big enough to handle all the enthusiastic Norwegians. Enthusiastic, somewhat handsy Norwegians, judging by the number of ass-grabs I experienced out there. Then, at one point, during a particularly raucous song,  I was dancing with a guy, a coworker, who was actually a very good dancer, very strong lead, which I need as I don't actually know how to dance, when a woman flailed her arm out and popped me right in the nose. I heard it crack, a little "snick" noise. There was no blood, but I got biffed but hard, and I think my nose is a little broken. Not BADLY broken, but just enough to cause me some pain and if I rub my nose in one direction it kills. My face is sore today.

Ah well, over all it was a fun party. We even had entertainment by a Eurovision winner, Alexander Rybak? He won the Eurovision in 2009.