Again, this year, as in most non-Covid years, there are/were plenty of holiday parties celebrating Christmas, New Years, company success, past and present. BJ and I are fortunate (?) enough to have donated time and/or treasure to enough area organizations that we get included on many of the invitation lists. Unfortunately, we do not attend several of the more fun events. Reasons range from driving in the dark to driving (back) to Port Townsend. This year a major drawback was the health of my lower back, or is the IT bands in my left leg. (More about that later.)

Instead, I offer a description of one of the parties as an example.

One of the more fun parties is for and by the board of directors of the Port Ludlow Performing Arts. The current president of PLPA is Sharla Erick. She and her husband Kevin graciously host the party in their home. BJ is the treasurer and assures me the catered food was paid for by donations from each of the board members and not by any PLPA funds.

I know, you and I were both worried about misappropriation of funds from the PLPA cash box.

True to form, Sharla arranged for a couple of games to be played by all of the roughly 20 people at the party, whether they wanted to play of not. The most notable game was “Never Have I Ever,” a game where you are required to announce to the other players something you have not ever done in the hope that one of more will have done it, thus generating point(s) against them. You may have played the game.

Phyllis Waldenberg won because she must not have done very much or she knew some things she had not done but also knew some things other folks had done. She and her husband were the last two in the game and since Phyllis knew some things she had not done but knew Steve Rummel had done, END of Game. Phyllis won.

My good friend Peggy Welker introduced me to a couple of new members of the board with the warning to watch what you say around Ned because it will end up in the newspaper. Pshaw. Never Have I Ever.

PLPA holds all of the performances at the Bay Club and the club has tightened up on use of alcohol in their facility. They are requiring the group in charge of an event to rope off an area in the lobby where patrons may enjoy their glass of wine or beer or just talking with neighbors. As veterans of Port Ludlow know, this is a change in policy. Change is hard, particularly for those of us having been around awhile.

Peggy Welker related the story of when she drew the short straw and won the dubious distinction of being the alcohol area monitor person while enjoying her own glass of wine, both being the monitor and enjoying a glass of wine. (You thought the rules would be harsher, didn’t you?) Peggy had to follow up on some issue requiring her to leave her “monitor post” and walked out of the alcohol area with her wine glass.

I suspect she walked around on her disabled foot ensconced in one of those fancy podiatry boots blatantly disobeying the rules. We all would think better of her. We can wish all of these hard-working PLPA folks well at the concert this Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. The program is “Alias Brass.”

I have spent the past three months trying to resolve a problem in my hip/back/leg with strategies designed to fix my Piriformis Syndrome, my IT bands injury, my back injury and some other alias not immediately obvious to the medical community. The parties we would like to attend, like the Porsche Club, the Jefferson Community Foundation, and even The Leader holiday meal, went by the wayside as I sat at home bemoaning that I could not attend due to the pain I am experiencing. And you should see the collection of medications!

I am optimistic about more aggressive treatment for the injury and look forward to better health next year. I’ll bet you do too!

Love a curmudgeon and have a great week!