ODAA Dinner

So this was the first year that I have gone with my husband to the ODAA seminar, and accordingly the dinner.  He keeps telling me that normally there is not as much talking/speeches/ect as there were this year and I don't quite know if I believe him.  Despite the extreme boredom and my back spasming while desperately trying to sit up straight and be on my best, well mannered behavior, the video at the end that I will likely never be able to show anyone -- EVER -- was worth it.

Sadly, I think that is all that I am allowed to mention about the video.  That's right, all I can say is that there was a video, and that it was worth watching.

If they had something like that video every year, I would say that sitting through the first 95% of dinner would be worthwhile.

I don't want it to sound like the dinner was horrible.  It was pretty standard with speeches, awards, thanks, and the best attempt that chefs can put in to feeding that many people all at once  (if I get to go next time, I will avoid the salmon and opt for the veggie plate if I can do so).  We sat at the same table as the husbeasts' boss and a couple of co-workers of his, but I wasn't sitting next to any of them, only people I didn't know and couldn't giggle with.  Sure, meeting new people is nice, so long as they actually want to talk to you and that was not the case for the people sitting around me tonight.  The new aquaintance that sat to my right was only interested in discussing the proper use of Hawaiian red salt with one of Beau's co-workers.  A great big fail on that man's part of the conversation IMO, that particular salt is only so interesting for so long.  The internet junkie in me wanted to blurt out something like L2USEMOARSALT!

I also found myself wanting to say childish and pointless things through out the night like "poopy" but that could have just been the rum and cokes trying to poke through the proper behavior filter in my brain.

Approximately 30 minutes into the event I was seriously considering breaking out my knitting, and how much of a faux pau that would be in a room full of prosecutors and judges.  I like to think that I choose correctly and did not break out the needles and yarn while the president of the ODAA droned on about people I didn't know doing things I don't remember and that they were giving said people a piece of paper for doing them.  Good for those people, apparently they did something good!  I applaud them, recognition is good, but it just kept going and going and going, like people would expect at a graduation almost.

Afterwards -- and this would be the real disappointment -- we went for drinks... and no one joined us.  For some reason I still don't understand, I thought that the people that my husband works with were more social.  Maybe it's because most of them go out to lunch on Fridays and seem like they are friends.  My bad, that will be a good reminder to not assume that people who work and go out to eat together actually want to spend time together (especially after spending all day together in a seminar).  The supper wasn't like some awkward company picnic where the boss breaks out the "Q" and grills while people hunker down in tenuous cliques with their families and the closest things they can call friends until it is socially acceptable to leave.  It always seems that people genuinely like each other, so really, I was surprised that people were so anti-social after the dinner tonight.

We did get to meet some people from another DA's office in another county, and they were nice guys.  Perhaps at the next conference there will be more people to hang out with.