There were so many things to celebrate on Thursday! It all began when Deborah gave me 1/4 of her banana walnut muffin upon arriving at the office:

(Well, it all really began with my savory oats before I left home, but you know that already.)

For the appetizer course, Catherine brought over a box of tostones with garlic that had come with her Chinese food (yes, Chinese food with tostones … leave it to East Harlem) to share with Belkis. Belkis is an angel (you can tell from her glow below) and shared it with all of us.

Belkis continued in her angelic ways when she let us each taste some of the fish that she had caught all by herself!

Along with half of her salad!

I promptly dumped the rest of my chicken/tomatillo/rice mix on top because I’m a mixer 😀

Dessert was s-p-e-c-i-a-l because Lillian had picked up a couple of custard fruit tarts for Nydia and herself, and Nydia shared half of her tart with me:

Custard fruit tarts are my favorite dessert of all time!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm …

Oh, I almost forgot. I had another dessert of avena (the blended dominican oatmeal) leftover from Nydia’s breakfast:

Plus, Myrna and I staged a coup for dessert #3 when we noticed cupcakes languishing on the 5th floor conference room table:

I had 1/4 of my cupcake and split the rest between Deborah and Jennifer.

And thennnnnnnnn, it was time for the monthly “informal staff gathering” in the lobby. As always, the spread was astounding due to Trish’s impeccable organization skills: wraps and carrot cake donated by City Harvest, homemade salad, roast chicken and onions from Fine Foods, watermelon and cake from the grocery next door, and cheese and crackers:

The carrot cake pieces on toothpicks were my favorite. I bet the 4th of July cake was delicious, too, but I had to run to class before it was opened!

Here’s my plate with lots of salad (it had avocado, yay!), chicken, watermelon, and a carrot cake:

(I definitely had more carrot cake and some cheese and crackers before Julia and I scooted out to head down to Hunter.)

My group and I met to tie up some loose ends before we had to present. Madeline offered some gum but then stopped mid-give and said, “Sarah, don’t you want to take a picture of this?” I was happy to oblige:

And Jennifer shared some of her trail mix, complete with dried papaya chunks and yogurt-covered raisins:

During the presentation, I ate these tropical skittles from Emily, slyly (or maybe not so slyly) arranged on top of my presentation notes:

(Plus approximately 20 more skittles after the presentation.)

And then Lisa, Emily, Stacy, Daria, and I went for a drink to celebrate the end of Summer Session [1]:

Can’t wait for Summer Session 2 to start on Tuesday. Vodka and seltzer please?

Thanks.

How do you plan to celebrate this weekend?