Orange, pink, and espresso! Showers! Or, the countdown! Or, all wedding stuff, all the time!

I'm going to just apologize now and say that it will probably be all wedding stuff, all the time, for the next 19 days. Just so you know.

And 19 days! Holy cow!

So.

Marta and Tej organized a work shower for me the end of last week. I can't even tell you how happy it made me. They had pink and orange decorations, plates, and napkins, pink and orange M&Ms, pink and orange icing on the cake, and two kinds of Cheez-Its. It all rocked.

Nick was a surprise guest, which was lovely. Except that people, like our president - who is my boss - started asking him questions while he was standing in front of the crowd. I was twitching hard the whole time.

He asked Nick if he could encourage Lisa to keep working here for a long, long time. To which Nick essentially said that I have a lot of hobbies that I need to fund, so it really seems likely. I later mentioned that he might've said that he knows how much I love my job, so of course there's no question but that I'll be here for years.

Which he said never occurred to him.

So anyway.

They'd asked people not to bring gifts, and that in lieu of presents they were passing around a book (bound in orange!) for people to write words of wisdom, advice, happy thoughts.

The book is wonderful. I love it like crazy. People are still adding to it.

I did get surprise gifts, though. I've been departmentless, and this one department has adopted me. I didn't know they felt like they had, although I've been going to their staff meetings, as I don't have my own to go to. I know, sounds very sad and urchin-ish. Their Nordstrom gift card (yay - can buy spendy treats without guilt!) said, "From your adopted department."

Sooo nice!

And Jenny, lovely Jenny, my only original Quad-mate left, spearheaded a "Let's get Lisa the espresso maker she really wants!" effort. This was a huuuuge surprise.

Let me just take a moment to say that I'm a really irritating unwrapper. I peel the tape carefully, I slide off the paper, I set aside the ribbons. . .You get the picture. It makes people crazy.

I started unwrapping this gorgeously wrapped box. I carefully took off the ribbon, the tape, opened the top, and then saw what it was, and started jumping up and down and got all in a no way! you are kidding me! paper off off off! kind of frenzy.

If you can imagine me all jumpy up and downy in a hug and happiness frenzy. I bet you can.

Nick doesn't drink coffee, so this present is all. About. Me.

However, he has this engineering side that makes him really good at making and fixing things. And so Saturday he got all kinds of into the technicalities of the machine. He read the entire manual. And then explained it to me bit by bit.

My patience for these things is rather thin. I prefer to just rush in, with no idea what I'm actually doing.

In other words, I'm the opposite of Nick.

"That's too much coffee, Lis. It'll pour over the top. You tamp it down with this thing. No, wait, don't push that button until the orange light goes off. And remember. . ."

I can't even tell you how many little cups of coffee we made. Too much coffee? Too little? Too tamped? Not tamped enough? What if we use the two-cup thingy? Does milk froth better if you put less in there?

And I drank every last one. Wouldn't you?

So I was maybe bouncing off the walls for a bit Saturday.

Which was an incredible day, even though the weather sucked, because it was my closest girlfriend not-shower shower! Marta also organized this, with DC friends and my bridesmaids, minus California Jane (LA - very far) and Jen (Macedonia - veryvery far).

But that's another (weddingy!) post.

Best best weekend. Seriously.