"You know me, don't you?"

Last night I accompanied Ae to her volunteer organisation's annual cocktail party. It was a sweltering evening with the temperature still at 34c when we arrived at 6pm.

It was an odd affair. We arrived to a keyboard player serenading us in the lobby (not so unusual) and then were shepherded into the function room which had been set up as an auditorium where for the next hour we sat through a type of annual meeting complete with guest speaker and website demonstration. Ae, a primary school teacher no less, constantly whispered loud asides to me during the meeting ("what a poor speaker" and "a terrible presenter" etc) in behaviour I am sure she wouldn't tolerate in her own classroom. I had to admit, though, that the keynote speaker was not very good. The topic of the keynote speech was "Changing Times" which the speaker addressed with examples of what hadn't changed over time.

At the end of that meeting we received a gift package (a copy of the annual review and a pen!) and then were marshalled back into the foyer for an hour of drinks and nibblies (ahhh, finally a cocktail party). The sparkling wine must have gone to Ae's head quickly for she introduced me multiple times to other guests. "You know Victor, don't you", Ae asked one unfortunate woman four times over drinks.

As we drove away, we soaked in the benefits of a southerly change that had arrived in the two hours we were at the party dropping the temperature to about 15c.