Bob’s three year old son was happy to be the entertainment of Friday evening. Jobby tried to distract the guests with his “pictures” and “videos” of the summer and the “adventures,” but the small child had a stuffed animal collection to rival the real animal collection of the zoo I worked at in 2007, and the energy of a thousand Jobbys. (This is impressive, since, on an average day, one Jobby has the energy of ten Jennys… though I’ve been known to catch up.)
I was playing eleventh wheel to the four couples that were the dinner guests of Bob and his wife. Though the two members of the team from 2007 who did not return for 2008 were able to make it with their respective fiances, darling Jean Marie was unable to attend. I don’t know if anyone else noticed that the seating arrangement ended up that everyone else was perched in twosomes on the furniture while I lounged on the floor with three penguins, a walrus, a caterpillar, a snowy owl, a pair of caribou, a loon, two snakes, a polar bear, and Barney the dinosaur, but the three year old explaining to me that ALL the animals needed to be petted didn’t seem to mind. I didn’t mind either, and I got a terrific complementary chin-buffing out of the deal.
(When I told Papasaurus earlier in the week that no, I wasn’t bringing anyone and added, because I am such a Jokester, that I could just find a date there, I’m sure he didn’t believe me for a minute. “Oh, that Jenny,” he thought. “Mustn’t forget that she is a Jokester.”)
My “date” had a fabulous orange blankie and an incredibly useful flashlight, and I do hope that my dear roommate, (who of course also attended the party since she of course is Job’s “steady date,” as the kids say), isn’t too jealous that I got to spend so much time with the little tyke. She was quite enamored of him. I think we might steal him. Our apartment has several closets.
Our party favor was a CD with the combined pictures from all the various cameras that went to Barrow this summer, excepting the video camera (whose ten hours of footage have yet to be properly edited into an amusing short documentary). Now I have considerably more pictures than the few dozen I’ve been meaning to sort and selectively post, which should make the albums that I will eventually post that much more interesting, in theory. I may be the only person (well, to be fair, only one of three or four persons) willing to pay attention to hundreds of photos and ten hours of footage.
To be very fair, all the party guests and hosts have a fabulous attention span. After the Reminiscing and the Photo Viewing (and after the Entertainment and his baby sister went to bed), the whole lot of us played over an entire box worth of Apples to Apples.
Look At Me Still Talking When There's Science To Do 
Sounds like you and your “date” had fun, probably more fun than you’d have with some that are lets say, aged. Anytime you and your roommate want to be entertained by an energetic 3 year old just let me know, I know of one you can borrow – only thing is she’d never stay in the closet.