A Meeting and A Christmas Party

     So the Ocean State Reef Aquarium Society is underway. Rich and Brenda call a meeting of the BoD at our home to discuss the nature of of affairs with the club and what direction it should go in. Rich, Brenda and Charleen all attend. It's been decided after a conversation Rich had with Jeff, the prior president of CTARS, that a conference will be put on next year by OSRAS. Okay. Good idea? Maybe, if they can come up with some money because the club only has a few paying members. They have made me Facebook Coordinator. I can handle this no problem. Go on Facebook a couple of times a day to see if there is anyone trying to contact me, upload pictures taken at meetings, update status whenever requested. Brenda seems adamant that she doesn't want to really open all the books to the the club members and dammit! One of these people broke my toilet seat while they were in my home and didn't have the decency to tell either me or Chris!! 

     I'll look past the toilet seat for the time being and just try to have some fun with new club members and see how this Facebook thing goes. There is a Christmas party coming up for the club and a Secret Santa. I plan on making my famous pumpkin pie for the event and Chris plans on giving away one of his frags as a secret santa gift. But, our phones ring constantly and our Reef Central inboxes are getting full with requests and questions on how to do things....these are very needy people! They really want Chris and his father to go set up tanks again to sell their frags as well as donate some of them for their raffles and they are very insistent on this. Chris says he'll see what he can do. He prefers to offer, not be asked...Smile, Missie, smile! You love this hobby!!!

Yes, they gave in and brought their corals, their setting up here.

Emery showing his coral

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

Frags

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

     The day of the meeting comes. 

Filling out name tags

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

Secret Santa table

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

     There is a woman named Deb there. I know her. She's very nice. She looks pissed. I ask her what the problem is. She's upset because she made all the food for the party and Rich is ignoring her. Oh, for crying out loud! Are you kidding me?! Drama, really? Does it seriously have to find me here too? 

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

     I spend a majority of the party in the hallway listening to the life story of how she has been there for Rich when him and Brenda split up and how dare he treat her like this, she paid for their oil when they had none last year and blah, blah, blah....I run to Chris when I see him and tell him I think there is some sort of crazy fucked up love triangle going on that I just got myself in the middle of and to help me get the fuck out of it! 

     He laughs, makes fun of me for always finding drama and asks for my help with something. Eventually we make our way over to the party area. (By the way, the food was wonderful and eventually I did talk Rich into thanking her and she came into the party...by the door if I do remember correctly.) 

    Then we went on to the Secret Santa part of the party which was actually a lot of fun. 

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

      All in all the party was actually a good time. We had some great reef discussions with other members of the club. Afterwards, Rich and Brenda needed a ride home and wanted Chris' advice on how to bring their tank back to life anyway. We figured why not. That was an adventure all in itself. The tank they had set up was...dead. There was no living organism in it what-so-ever. The coral that was in it was skeleton that they were 'hoping' would somehow return from the dead. The live rock was white, no coralline, no algae, nothing. It was basically as if they has simply poured bleach in their tank...months ago. They had been adding so many different types of additives that they never needed to add for a tank that wasn't even close to being alive, it was purely insane. Chris gave them a few quick tips to get the tank started and we had to get out of there. (If you want a further explanation to that statement, ask me personally). 

     On a really good note, the BoD for CTARS is completely new and after the Christmas party that they had this month as well, Ego and his minions are gone!