The party...

One of our bosses invites us over to her house Thursday night as a sort of "Goodbye" party. Sounds awful right? It is.
I'm the 3rd to arrive. I give her the 2 bottles of wine I just picked up at High Times. Her house is amazing. Huge, beautiful. She explains all the redecorating they've done, how this used to be a garage and is now a family room, etc etc. I'm starting to not really feel too bad for her being laid off....I think she'll be fine. I meet her 2 lovely dogs. She's telling me about the house, I"m downing my wine. Everyone else starts to arrive.
Its awkward. Of course it is. We all stand around drinking and trying to make conversation. Mostly talking jobs, what people are doing now, etc. I realize only 1 other employee has a couple of interviews lined up. Seems like the rest of us are just fucked. I start asking 2 of them about the unemployment process. It sounds dreadful and long. Great. I'll be doing this on Monday.
I find myself chatting with our prez and his wife. They've been to a couple of RG shows, so I'm filling them in on my next one and the upcoming Our Town. The conversation then takes a wicked turn. He's livid. He starts ripping on a couple of the board members and how they could have saved us and politics got in the way and on and on and on. I cant blame his anger - hell I agree with him. But it hurt to hear. I had known, but it was sad. This board member I thought was one of our saving graces, someone who cared about us, etc. I find out all these years its not true. We almost got completley nothing. It was a couple of other board members that got us to hold off a bit so we could go down gracefully and at least get our vacation paid out. Jesus. He's so angry.
I move on to another conversation, finding myself babbling about nothing. I"m asked how it is at work right now. I tell people how quiet and weird and miserable and surreal it is. I then find myself in the kitchen with the production boys. There's about 4 of us, we stay together the rest of the night. Drinking alot. We go outside, smoke and bitch and laugh. We're out there when the party is coming to an end a little before 10pm. I run in and get my purse saying my goodnights and thank yous.
5 of us girls end up talking in the street for another half hour. I'm babbling thru my wine haze, we're all just shocked and sad and tired. We all promise to keep in touch. We've all exchanged emails. Etc Etc Etc.
The whole night was so strange. There was anger, laughter, tears, shock. This is such an odd situation. A company thats been around since 1986 or so. An opera company. We are (or were) one of the top 20 opera companies in the US. This is a horrid death. So many people are now jobless and shocked and sad and hurt. Its just so odd.
I come home realizing I'll never see most of these people again.