Hey You, over there on the other Coast....

You are sound asleep in your little bed. I, on the other hand, am up after eating about 500 calories of cake. I couldn't bear to be home after I got off the phone with you last night. So I went to the regular Friday night wine tasting at Raley's. This is the equivalent of a wine tasting at Giant Eagle. $3 gets you a glass and an endless pour of four or five pretty rough wines which you can enjoy with the other connoisseurs. And cheese. Sliced. And crackers. And cut up fruit. And some salami. All of this takes place right by the bakery section so it was a foregone conclusion that I would fork over another 2.99 for a square of white layer cake with white frosting and sprinkles. I didn't intend to eat the whole thing--but somehow it just happened.

This is what is known as dealing with emotional issues by eating.

Right after my mother died, I would stand in the kitchen and eat ice cream out of a 1/2 gallon container. Just me and the ice cream and the spoon. Or I'd toast marshmallows on a fork over the kitchen stove. And eat them slowly while I read a book. Then go back and roast some more. It really interrupted the reading, but I couldn't figure out how to make the toasting be less intrusive. I did contemplate a candle, but figured it would take too long.

This is a blog post. Before we reconnected, I would put this on ByJane. So I think I'll do that now too. Why waste the words on someone who is ASLEEEEEEEP!!!!

Death and Dying - at Midlife

I was out of sorts yesterday. Just felt meh-ish, after a several week period in which I was up-and-at-em. Am I crashing, I thought. Oh no, oh woe. But then I did what I have learned to do at such times (at least when I can remember) and that is to just accept that I'm feeling meh-ish. And know that it too will pass. While I was working at achieving this pseudo-Zen state--and wishing, really, that I could have a Stepford button installed in my brain because who needs to feel meh-ish even if you know it will pass--I realized the source of my state of mind. The day before my friend M called to tell me that our friend Sharon was dying.

I saw Sharon when I was in LA a couple of weeks ago. It was a reunion of sorts of our book club and Sharon, who hadn't been feeling at all well, particularly wanted to come. She needed to see her friends. The group of us hung out as we have done so many times in the past, and we talked, really talked, 'checking in' with each other as only women who have history together can do. My check-in was to relate not only the ghastly year I've had, but also the much more promising one that seems now to be taking place.

Sharon checked in with her medical report. The doctor saw a spot on her lung and said it was probably sarcoidosis. Or maybe lung cancer. Sharon wasn't buying that diagnosis; she much preferred the sarcoidosis, which is an immune system disease that is rarely fatal. She would do what she has always done (sometimes with disasterous results, it must be said) and trust totally in Alternative non-Western medicine. She was refusing the steroids that would be prescribed for the sarcoidosis and she was refusing the second CAT scan that would rule out cancer. But oh, she was so tired, and so weak, and so very very depressed. The doctor wanted her to go on anti-depressants and until now, she had refused them as well. But we, her girl friends (some of whom were loaded up on Prozac and Effexor themselves) urged her to reconsider. Think of the mind-body connection, Sharon, we told her. How can you hope to get well without your full emotional strength. And she finally agreed. When I hugged her goodbye, it was with the knowledge that she too would soon be loaded up on Effexor and feeling 100% in just a matter of time.

I don't think she ever got that prescription filled. The next day I'm told she was so weak that her sister came to take her to the doctor. She had the second CAT scan. Stage IV lung cancer; metastasized already to her bones. She died yesterday, just three weeks after I last saw her. When M called to tell me, I thought, Aha--the meh-ish feeling made much more sense than I had originally thought.

I've reached the age when I'm starting to lose my friends, all of whom are midlife women. Not that cancer doesn't take young people as well, but I am suddenly aware of how vulnerable we all are to the ultimate breakdowns in the body. How vulnerable I am. And it makes me feel--well, very vulnerable.

The Big Buildup to BlogHer'08

Tomorrow is July 1st--Holy Shit! just seventeen days to get ready for the big event. Some of us are going on extreme diets and some of us are having our hair cut, colored and what-evered. The boys are moaning about the dumb luck of Mommybloggers and a dozen or so contests have sprouted all over the blogosphere. The air, she is palpable, as is the excitement. What shall I wear? Who will talk to me? What if no one does? What if I end up sitting in a corner all weekend like a crumpled ball of Kleenex. There is no way that the event could ever match the anticipation, but every year we hope it will. Is this the eternal hopefulness of the damned? (And what does that mean? It just slipped out).

This year I have high hopes for BlogHer'08. Mostly because I am working hard to have no hopes at all. No expectations. Not for me. Expectations, as Pip could tell you, are a trap. I will not be going out the day before I leave to get a Really Cool Haircut that was a REALLY BAD MISTAKE, requiring that I have it immediately amended at Supercuts. I will not be staying by myself, because, damn, that's lonely, even if I don't have an extra bed for all my schwag. I will not try and make of my blogs anything, anything at all. They are what they are and--are you ready for this incredible insight?--they will be what they will be without any grandiose efforts from me. My goal this year is simple: to have fun.

Yes, indeedy. After the year I've just had, I think fun has to be at the top of the agenda. And laughing. Lots of LOLing. And maybe a serious conversation or two. And meeting people I know on-line but not in person. And people I don't know on-line. And just hanging out. And laughing--did I mention that?

Now I'm Up--Now I'm Not

It amazes me how quickly my sense of self can teeter off the board. Today was a good day. I got MidLifeBloggers accepted for BlogHer Ads and I wrote a Belated Intro to the site to post on BlogHer.

Maybe the teetering started when I couldn't download the second part of the BlogHer Ads app. Maybe it got a little worse when I couldn't get the intro uploaded without some strange code attached to it, despite trying twice, and so I deleted it, twice. Frustrating, yes, but ultimately fixable.

Then I read Dooce and her friend Carol's twin posts about the diet they're doing together, and I thought I want to go on that diet too. But I immediately realized that it wasn't the diet I envied, but their friendship. It's been a while since I've had that kind of closeness with another woman where you can absolutely trust that she wants what is good for you--and cares enough to say so.

The coup de grace happened when I sat down to dinner. I had a plate full of food, chicken arriabiata and basil pasta and fresh green beans that I was enjoying, I thought, when suddenly my perspective changed. It was as if I had an out-of-body experience, and I looked down and I saw myself as I was, sitting alone, working my silent way through the chicken and green beans. The thought flashed through my mind: is it worse to always be sitting alone, eating alone these nutritious meals. Or would I feel less pathetic if I was eating on the fly, just grabbing whatever, like I did when I was in my twenties?

That's a rhetorical question, by the way; no need to answer with encouraging words about respecting oneself and caring for one's body. I know all that. Hell, you don't get to this stage of midlife without having internalized a whole heap of magazine articles and books about How To Live Successfully Alone. I'm really just registering that instant of altered perspective and then only to say how it was as if the lights went out.

I know what my problem is, and I know how to solve it. It just takes time, but patience has never been my strong suit.

This Post Was Meant To Be About Something Else

Today Nanny Goats In Panties and I had coffee. Well, she had coffee and I had some strange iced tea blend that was a little more jasmine-y than I would have liked. Jasmine. What is jasmine doing in iced tea? Is this a cultural thing that I'm just not getting. And should be. Because God knows, Elk Grove is nothing if nothing not bi- and multi- and many-cultural. Despite this, it is not what one would call cosmopolitan. That is, to meet and have coffee, Nanny Goats in Panties and I met not at some sidewalk bistro but at the local Raley's. Raley's is a supermarket. This is what we have come to in Elk Grove, sipping our brew while relaxing in leather armchairs at the local grocery store. Nanny Goats in Panties went food shopping afterwards; I came home.

While we were enjoying our drinks in the, okay, pleather armchairs, we discoursed on:
the lack of interest our friends and family show in what for us is our passion, our blogs; the lack of salon-worthy companions in our separate circles of friends; the intellectual energy, the very zeitgeist of Manhattan, where we both wished we were; the fact that save each other, we had no friends off-line who also had an existence on-line.

Do you ever feel this way? Or are we the only sad sisters in the group and the rest of you have burgeoning and budding on/off-line relationships with multiple fascination geeks? Or do you too feel as if sometimes the people who understand you the best, who hear you the clearest, who give you the most of what you need are people you know solely through your blog? And if you do feel this way--how close are you to Sacramento??????

Kninking..err, Knitting & Drinking

Another glorious night of it, my friends. This time at a lovely little wine bar in Elk Grove (don't you wish you lived nearby). We came and we ate and we drank and we knit. I think I've only dropped one stitch. At least just one that I know about. No one looked askance. Everyone seemed to feel it was perfectly natural for a group of seven and eight women to be knitting and drinking...kninking.

Here's a pitcher for you. Don't say I don't illustrate my posts, please:

This is Sarah

And this is Brenda The rest of the group is--well, they're reflected in the many wine glasses before Sarah and Brenda. We decided we're going to do this once a month, on the third Friday. Come join us.

January 1, 2008

I would like to be clever, if not altogether witty, but I think I'm suffering from a smidgeon of not really a hangover, but you know that oh-so-tired feeling you get when you've been drinking all day and then you stop? In lieu of actual words, though, I've got some actual photos. Enjoy...

This was my view for much of the morning at Knitique, my LYS. I was slithered down in my chair at the table in the back, sipping my champers and pomegranate juice (is this an actual drink, maybe a primosa? or did I come up with the pomegranate juice because it is so very good for my brain cells?). Can you tell that Knitique is a vision of lime and hot pink? These are Danielle's favorite colors and we like them too. Which is a good thing.
This is Danielle, who owns Knitique. You can't tell, but she's wearing hot pink Uggs. I'm not sure what she's doing with her hand...
This is the view of the table where I'm sitting. That's my Treo...and my Denise needles...and my pink polkadotted cup of Primosa. The yarn is one of two skeins I got ON SALE (because that is what happens at Knitique on New Year's Day). I was swatching it here, and I decided to make a purse. Which you'll see when I'm done...some day.

These are the flying fingers of Kim (see the blur) at lunch. There was a whole long table of us. Some of us (who? me?) ordered dessert first. Some of us (who? me?) had a margarita. Most of us were knitting. The waitress was, fortunately, quite patient--and we tipped her well.

This is the lovely Teresa, who, having gotten to the store at 6 a.m. was, at this point, on her fourth or fifth wind.


And these are the things I bought. The object at one o'clock is a case for my doublepoint needles which, currently, are thrown in a mass mess into a drawer. There's a pattern for a Panda Silk Easy (so they say) Scarf and below it are two skeins of, hey, Panda Silk. Then my Crystal Palace Deco Ribbon that I got on sale and the beginning of the purse. I bought the Learn to Spin kit because--well, just because it seems like I should learn to spin. Even though I've never had the least desire to. And finally, two books and two magazines. If I was a better blogger, I'd link to them on Amazon but I'm not so I won't. You can read the titles and google them yourself.

I only spent one half of what I spent last year, but two or three times more than I intended to spend this year. Oh well--if you're a knitter, you understand; if you're not, you probably stopped reading this post ages ago.

Still Wandering...

...and not sure when I'll be back. I could go home tomorrow. Or I could take a sidetrip to the coast. Molly's up for whatever, and me--I think all these hours alone in the car are....probably good for me. Maybe.

I had great intentions to blog along the way, but tonight is the first time I've actually achieved an internet connection. Perhaps the drinks and wine at dinner on the nights I was in Seattle had something to do with it. Here we are last night:

Liz and I haven't seen each other in--oh, decades and decades and decades. Our last memory of being together was a week we spent at Lake Candadhota with two other friends, Ellen and Karen. It was the summer before our senior year in high school. Liz and I made our own bathing suits. Hers was a red and black plaid with white piping, a two piece. Mine was blue-green silky print, fully lined, in the most daring of styles, a "hiphugger". I was always the girl with the shortest skirts, even in those days. I left after that weekend and started my freshman year at Pitt; my mother, who was in a hurry for me to get going, shoehorned me into college at year early. I never had a senior year. I never saw Liz and Ellen and Karen again. Do I sound bitter? Well, regretful, no doubt.

Despite the decades and decades and decades intervening, Liz and I picked up as if it had only been days. We marveled at that, and I, ever one for deconstructing every happenstance and emotion even unto death, tried to figure out what it was about us that created such an unbreakable connection. We met in First Grade; our mothers fixed us up, in the days before Playdates were so common. And we just stuck, I guess. Liz is the reason why I'm such a good Catholic: whenever we had Saturday night sleepovers, we had to go to Mass the next morning. She taught me to genuflect, to cross myself, and to bob my head at "Jesus" when I sang Christmas carols.

We didn't go to Mass this weekend, but we spent hours talking and laughing and catching each other completely up to date on our four marriages and her three children, where we've been and where we still want to go. It was, in a word, amazing.

A Dollar Late and A Day Short--or is it the other way around?

And what the fuck does it mean anyway?

Ne'er mind: tis only my cute way of explaining why this post about How I Spent Saturday Night in LA is not being written until the following Wednesday. And, no, it is not because it took me that long to recover. Smart Ass. Kevin, I'm looking at you.

I went to a party. In the Hollywood Hills. Whoohoo! It was at the end of Woodrow Wilson Drive. Does anyone know how long and windy WW Drive is? And how the houses are set back and up. Up, as in 180 degrees (is that possible, I'm a little weak on numbers) with a switchback or two included for good measure. When I saw the walk up, I took off my party shoes and flipflopped my way up the hill. Stopping only once or twice to gasp, loaded down as I was with wine bottles. Having left the chips and dip in the car because, well, because I was on my own, having neither mate nor sherpa to carry the goods.

It was the first annual LA Bloggers party. There is a nifty badge but I've decided that this is to be an unillustrated post. Since I didn't take my camera (what--I should carry that too????) and it didn't occur to me to whip out my Treo. But if you want to see the full monty and beyond, go to LA Daddy, who organized the do. Or Sueb0b, who was there adding to the Red Stapler archives.

I have whined on this site about how lonely the lot of the blogger is. It's a hard, cruel world where your friends and family not only don't understand you--"you blog? what does that mean exactly? But they shun you as well--I don't want to communicate with you along with the masses. Thus, you can imagine the joy of being at a party where almost every single solitary person (and those not so solitary) had blogs. Some even had several (I did notice that there was a tendency among male bloggers to go for size assessments, as in I have five blogs....well, I have ten).

Sueb0b and I fell on each other, having met at BlogHer last year. But other than her/she (and I claim to be an English person?), I knew no one. But the bloggers, we are a friendly group and I felt a member of the crowd in no time. Even if I was only tangentially from LA...in my heart...at least for a while. I highfived with Sinking into the Pacific and Down With Pants. Exchanged tales of being a daughter with Tara Met Blog. Envied, envied, envied the incredibly flat abs of Baby on Bored. And the bump of LA Mommy. And not House of Prince who had to head for the head to pump.

And then the everglorious LeahPeah arrived, with the trusty Joe by her side, bearing my BonPron, which I promptly put on, causing all sorts of people to say, after talking to me for a while, "is that an apron you're wearing?" Yes, and a bonnet, as well. I traded her my Two Sticks Cammie Bag for it at her Trade a Craft site.

Sueb0b and I crawled down the hill together, leaving Sweatpants Mom and company to crouch by the fire and lollygag in the hot tub without us. If you want to get a really creative version of the evening, go to the above-mentioned Kevin Charnas, whose partner Will's nametag said it all: Blog Widow.

I know I've left people out, but my fingers are getting cramped and I'm getting a bit bored with this list. So if you're not here, and I met you and love you--I'll be visiting your site soon to comment.

S'all, folks...

Making Myself Sick

I cannot stand cute. I abhor twee. Don't give me any angels, please, and unless I sneeze, don't bless me. As a recent post of mine attested, I call things as I see them. Dead is dead, dumb is dumb, and bullshit is bullshit.

So why is it that whenever I want to refer to a friend that I have made through blogging, I keep wanting to say bliend? Pronounced blend, as in blog + friend. Omygod I'm gonna puke....

So--one of my "bliends" is offering this month an easy summer recipe/hint/treat a day, and I'm addicted. She lives in Napa and is in the Food & Wine Trade, as they say, so she is nothing if not au courant, etc. etc. with all things Foodie.

The other day I made HelenJane's Tomato Avocado Salad. I seeded and sliced chocolate brown Rosso Bruno tomatoes, peeled and sliced an avocado, cut up into--yep, you guessed it--thin slices some Vidalia onion, poured olive oil on it, salt and pepper and the juice of a lime. It was, in a word, exquisite (and you know that if I say it, I mean it). This is exactly HelenJane's recipe, and she has lots more. Go visit. Maybe you'll make a new bliend, too.

First I Stalked Her; Now I'm Pimping Her

It's over now, so I can talk about it.

One Sunday afternoon, while out and about on my way to Target, I spied with my little eye a different kind of licenseplate holder, one that I'd never seen before, at least not up here in the woods. It was an URL for a site called runnerblogger.com. Such a wondrous thing to come on in Elk Grove--or my life, for that matter--where I am, amongst those I know the rare one who blogs. I have felt quite lonely in that regard, so seeing in front of me an SUV that must I thought, I hoped contain a blogger was exciting beyond words. Someone like me. Someone to talk to. Someone who didn't think I was insane or just plain noodley for keeping a blog (and at your age, my dear).

So I did what any person lusting for friends would do (wouldn't you?): I followed that SUV. I was prepared to go some distance--maybe not way over to the South Side--but still, a ways. Except the runnerblogger pulled into the Target parking lot. Is that not a miracle? Or at least, kismet?

I parked my car any which way and ran to the SUV, from which was emerging a long and lanky redhead, with a kid in hand and one in arms. She was, I must tell you, gorgeous. Stunning really. And model tall. And model chic. And I loved her on sight.

So I accosted her. "Hi, I'm not a runner but I am a blogger," I said.

Witty.

She, bless her heart, did not shun me. Did not look down on me from those 72 inches and whither me with a look. Puleeze. Who are you? And why are you in my air space?

Rather, she stopped. She smiled. She listened to me blather, and then she gave me her actual url, Queen of Dysfunction

I've been visiting her site for several months now. She is amazingly funny. An English major now studying to be an undertaker (am I the only one who sees the similarity? Or must one be an English major oneself to get it?). She writes about her life and her kids and her funeral-whatever studies She's got a couple of latino fish who think pudenda is a new dance. And a husband known as the King of Dysfunction. She is, I have to tell you, the dooce of Elk Grove, if not all Sacramento. Yes, she's that witty and that smart and that right-on-the-edge.

So I've added her to my blogroll. And you should check her out.

Another FO.....a scarf & knitting as Zen practice

I bought this yarn (the name of which I hope I'll remember before I'm done posting) when I was making the poncho for Kayla. It's a rather expensive, hand-dyed wool, and in the end, I opted to go for a less expensive yarn for Kayla. Not, I hasten to add, because a still-growing 10 year old was not worth the expense, but because the yarn when knitted up felt a tad rough.

So I had this hank of wool hanging around, and concurrent with that is my upgrading my knitting book library, which also meant a review of my past knitting book library. There I found Zen & The Art of Knitting, by Bernadette Murphy. The book was published in 2002, which those of you keeping track will know is the YOTA,Year of The Aneurysm. (Or perhaps we should say all time prior to July 2002 was B.A., and all time after was A.A. But that makes it sound like some college-type degrees, and since I'm way past the A.A. and the B.A. stages, let's just refer to time as Before YOTA and After YOTA.)

I bought the book Before YOTA because Bernadette Murphy is a friend of mine (can one still say that about someone one hasn't seen or spoken to in five years?). But I hadn't, I must confess, actually read the book. But then YOTA interfered and knitting was not so much on my mind. Just buying a book that a friend has written is enough, I think; reading it is just icing on the cake.

Here we are, After YOTA, and I'm knitting again. And thinking how my knitting is a visualization of my internal process. That is, all of my stuff, my shit, my schtick or whatever you call it, comes out when I'm knitting. The same stuff that operates in my life, to good and ill, operates in my knitting. And this realization sent me back to Zen and the Art of Knitting, to see what Bernadette has to say about the topic.

So I'm leafing through the Index and I see an entry for "Judaism". Aha, I think. What can the Irish Catholic Bernadette being saying about Judaism? So I'm reading about Mitzvah Day at Temple Israel of Hollywood and how Bernadette knit Preemie caps there and about the conversation at the table and suddenly I see my name. There on page 96 am I--and I didn't know it. Or maybe I did, but forgot due to YOTA.

I got very excited with no one but D to jump around and point it out to, and we know he's not the most appreciative of audiences. Then I felt incredibly guilty that I have not kept up the friendship with Bernadette. Then I decided to make the scarf she describes on page 33 of the Chapter, "Feeding The Soul" in her honor.

The pattern calls for a 2x2 rib interspersed with knit every other row. But of course, I fucked up and lost track of what row I was on. But in the spirit of Making Lemonade, etc. etc. I created my own pattern of reversing the 2x2 and knit for an inch every three inches.

And now I've reached the end of this post and I still can't remember what the yarn is, even though Danielle told me last night. What she also said was that if you wash this yarn, it gets very soft.

When Your Words Catch Up With You...or, My Face Is Red, but My Heart is Full

Yesterday was Wednesday, and Wednesday night is late night at Knitique, my LYS (knit-speak for local yarn shop). Knitters have a propensity for communal activities. It's part of our DNA, so to speak, from the days long ago when no woman worth her salt or not would be found with empty hands. Women's work in all those Jane Austen novels was needlework, and if you recall, they could always be found in front of the fire somewhere with work in hand. But--I digress.

So, yesterday was Wednesday, and Wednesday night is late night at Knitique, when a revolving, evolving group of us gather around the table in the back of the store and knit and talk and eat pink M&Ms and knit and talk. Most LYSs have something similar; I've been to a number. Never have I found one where I went back again and again. There's a Yiddish word, gemeluchkeit

I wrote that a couple of weeks ago, got tripped up on how to spell that Yiddish word and never posted it. I was going to tell the story of how embarrassed I was when my friends at Knitique greeting me after a post in which I had lamented the lack of hard-core, graduate student, jargon-laden BS in my life. They just hooted and hollered and yelled at me in faux-yokel dialect. At first, I was confused. Then I realized--omg, they read my blog! I was pleased, embarrassed and then, perverse though it may seem, felt an overwhelming love for this group of women who have become my friends. One of my core issues has always been that I'm not being truly seen, but these women--they see me.

I'm writing this now because I spent New Year's Day with them and it couldn't have been, I feel, a better, more propitious start to 2007. Danielle, the owner of Knitique, has started a New Year's Day tradition: a 6 a.m.-2 p.m. deep discount, wear-your-PJs sale of everything in the shop. I didn't get there at 6, but at 12:30 everything I wanted was still there. So, I went 'round the store with two shopping bags and loaded up. I bought yarn and books and felting needles and more yarn and...and...and... You'll see everything over the next months, I promise.

But it wasn't the sale that made the day so special. It was the women there. Danielle, of course, and her sister, Lisa (we discovered we were kindred souls!), and Teresa and her daughter and Kim and Shirley. There were some Knitiquers missing--Mary and Susan (who was home with her week old baby) and SJ and Nancy and....and....and...you get my point. After the shop closed at 2 p.m., we went to On The Border and had margaritas and dessert and then dinner.(Yes, you read the order right.) We laughed and talked and shared stories and made plans and...and...and--if this presages the best of 2007 for me, it promises to be a fantastic year!

Ho Ho Ho...

and a Merry Christmas to all.

Last night's dinner party was a great success. Not the food particularly, since I cooked a prime rib, which I don't think I've ever done before (yes, how sad, to get to my age and be a prime rib virgin). I put it in the oven with the temp probe inserted correctly, or so I thought. But the temp never registered. Then, of a sudden, due I think to a wiggle of the probe, it did. And was at it's pre-ordained internal temp. Or so it said. But when D carved it, it was still a bit blue. So our guests had a choice of rare, very rare, or the outside piece. They didn't seem to mind.

I wasn't too impressed with my latkes either, which I made to honor the evening as Chrismukah. But the pear sauce I made to go with it was a hit, and worth the tedious grating of the pears (I took photos, thinking I'd illustrate, but, eh, it's too late tonight).

My cupcakes were a bit dry. I cannot make cupcakes. I'm okay on the cake part, but when it gets divided into little frilly baskets, something happens to the batter and--I don't know--the result is less than rewarding. I decorated these with fluffy white frosting, flavored with peppermint. I even hauled out my cake decorating tools and did a stylized green Christmas tree on each, with little silver shot balls, which probably sounds better than it looked because I used a green that was better suited to camouflage. And the fluffy white frosting got a bit sticky, more like fluffy white glue. We tried one and D made an emergency run to the store for ice cream. I find ice cream will cure whatever ails a cake, don't you? Of course, he did get spumoni, which he bought because he liked the colors, not because he knew what it was. Still, the guests all ate their cupcakes with seemingly unfeigned pleasure.

So my food, which has in the past been the high point of my dinner parties, was less than sterling. What made this evening so special was the guests. There were four couples and some of us didn't know the others at all. But people came and they drank and they ate and they drank and they laughed and they ate and they laughed and then they drank some more. I got to do all the fun things that I've loved about dinner parties past, like serve port and Stilton. I haven't entertained much in recent years. It just didn't seem worth the work. Can I tell you how many times I've bought port and Stilton in the past and neither got cracked? But last night, lordy lordy, they ate and drank it all. Clearly, I've been running with the wrong bunch.

And now I'm tired (as you can tell by my rambling), so to all a good night....

New Badge

Not sure exactly what this Twitter thingie does, except that Toady Joe invited me, and I never turn down an invitation from a friend. Then I invited 150 of my closest friends....no, not that many. But going through my address list on Yahoo was sort of like an architectural dig: oh, there's that person I was friendly with about five years ago...who the fuck is that...my accountant...my old boss...dooce...my niece....a person I was friendly with about three years ago...someone I went to grade school with...my office mate from Lehigh...who the fuck is that.........

To those of you who did make the cut, if you would prefer to be in the 'who the fuck' category, let me know.