Last week I went to three, no four parties.  Some were big, well planned Christmas bashes (which took place in the afternoon because that's when ladies of a certain age git down) and some were small, low key, well planned dinner parties and at least one was an intimate, impromptu which I napped half way through.  All were great fun and the food has been unbelievable.

Friday, we went to the home of our friends, Tom and Mary for a dinner party that was all Irish based.  Now, the Irish are not universally touted for their fine cuisine but they get lumped in unfairly with the English far too often.  Our dinner consisted of leg of lamb (delicious!) beef and kidney pie (also very good although most of us would have preferred to skip the kidney part) and something called pudding which was more like an oatmeal cookie, soaked in mulled wine and covered in ice cream (yummmm.)  Delicious home made Irish soda bread accompanied all the courses.Throw in plenty of red wine and Irish whiskey and you've got yourself an excellent party.  As with all parties, it really turned on the quality of the company, which was brilliant.

Jay claims he was ready to kick me under the table all night, as he knew there were topics of conversation that came up that can cause me to turn into the terminator.  I was good. I didn't say a word when one gal made a crack about the Republicans being the ones who try to undermine the Constitution (given that McCain/Feingold is a slap at the First Amendment, I can actually see her point, but it's small potatoes compared to everything BoHo&co have done in office.)  I didn't even rise to the bait when someone else said nursing homes should have "Kevorkian kits" for when old folks get too troublesome.  Why?  Don't we already have guns?  I noticed it wasn't the lone Republican at the table suggesting we kill off the old and infirm.  No wonder liberals like ObamaCare.  I neither said a word nor threw my glass of wine.  In fact, I rather liked the gal who said the awful thing.  The worst thing I did all night was correct someone who mentioned Captain Bligh and the strawberry incident.

I know it was just a slip of the tongue and who hasn't confused the Mutiny on the Bounty with the Caine Mutiny?  But I'm really obnoxious that way.

So obnoxious in fact that a gal who has only met me on one other occasion called me an extrovert.  Seriously.  She was talking personality types and when she got to me, she said "you are clearly an extrovert but I haven't figured you (she pointed to Jay) out yet."

This caused several members of the dinner party to break out in guffaws.

Well, Jay and I broke out in guffaws.  I don't know what she does for a living but I sure hope she's not any kind of behavior analyst.

"I'm not an extrovert." I said.  "I'm not even an introvert.  The other introverts refer to me as 'the hermit."

"She hates people!" Jay happily chimed in.

"I don't hate people." I said. "I just prefer them in another room."

"But you're... you're so..." she said.

"She's drinking!" Jay explained.

"I can fake it in short bursts," I said. "But it's completely exhausting."

Her husband, who was on my right, said "Me too.  Then I get bored and my mind wanders.  My inner world is much more interesting to me."  He's a professor who only teaches online courses.  Doesn't that sound like the best job ever?

He immediately became my favorite.  We didn't speak again all night.

so yesterday, I had no parties to go to which was just as well, as I'm really tired.  I spent the day trying to clear my Christmas orders.  I'm almost done.  I checked off a hundred dollars worth of needlepoint orders in the morning, sent them off and spent the evening grinding out calligraphy while watching Hart to Hart.

Robert Wagner is too pretty for me.  While I can appreciate his looks, I find him as sexy as a Ken Doll. You know, the non biologically accurate, smooth all over plastic doll. He and Stephanie Powers are pretty cute together but the show is a lot cheesier than I remember.  It's no Remington Steele, let me tell ya.

Today, I have another party to go to and I'm going to bake Chocolate Crinkle cookies.  They are my favorite but I don't make them very often because Jay hates them.  They're very messy.

I haven't done much in the way of Christmas shopping but I think it's enough.  I did think of something I need to get for my new daughter in law, to welcome her to the family.  I'll do a bit of shopping tomorrow but mostly from here on in, it's cookie baking and wrapping.

Jay has the month off, for the first time in his professional career.  With no actually team to take care of and no game schedule, he's free to do whatever he wants.  He's already gone to more Christmas parties this year than ever before because he usually has a game that night.

He spent this week cleaning out first the basement room which Zack just vacated, then the little bedroom next to the kitchen.  He cleared out drawers, cupboards, closets, mopped, dusted, vacuumed, threw away broken stuff and bought new furniture.  He has accomplished a lot.

He found a plastic bag stuffed in the back of a shelf high in a closet yesterday and pulled it out.

"Is this your wedding dress?" he asked me.

It was.  It's a bit grey, but it actually looks great for having been shoved in a garbage bag for almost thirty years.

"Try it on." he said.

"I could wear it as a hat, but that's about it." I held it up.  I can't believe I was ever that size.  I can't believe it was almost thirty years ago.

Time flies, so I'm going to enjoy it.

 

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