~Saturday~ I had a lazy morning, and did a couple of loads of laundry, the second one being my sheets. I look forward to fresh, clean, soft ones tonight!
I met Robert at 4:00 at his sister and her husband’s farm out in Orange County, where we enjoyed three hours of a very interesting collection of people and some great food.
I’m going to attempt to list all of their names, but I’m sure I won’t spell them all correctly, because, well, they’re an interesting collection of names, too. I’ll start with the easier ones.
- Fran and Dick (a.k.a. “Doc”) (the hosts of the soiree)
- Bryan, Amanda, Riley (Fran’s son and Robert’s nephew, his girlfriend and her sweet dog)
- Mark (Robert’s brother)
- Jeff and Reesie (Jeff cooked for us! Thanks!)
- Victor and Finette (friends of Doc, recent arrivals from Rancho Mirage)
- Noelle and Molly (a friend of the hosts, and her adorable deaf doggie, who did not seem to know sign language—at least not American Sign Language) I did try [hover over images if you don’t know the ASL letters]:
to no avail. Perhaps I should have tried:
or better yet:
We had lots of fun conversation, from Kirstie Alley and Michael Jackson and the National Enquirer, to Broadway plays (The Lion King, Jersey Boys, Next to Normal, Chicago, Shrek the Musical, Wicked, and the revival of Hair), to places to live, Facebook (go “Sheneesta Quit!”) to blogging, to Twitter, to Sarah Palin’s resignation and women’s treatment in the media in general, to the governor of South Carolina (denigrating the institution of marriage more than the ‘Mos getting married could ever hope to compete with).
Speaking of Palin’s resignation, seen on a friend’s blog:
| Best letter to the editor response ever in a local newspaper: “For the first time, a Palin actually decides to pull out early.” Classic. |
The food was absolutely abundant and most delicious. Burgers and dogs on the grill are always better, and when someone else cooks them, they’re better yet. In addition to that there was some shrimp cocktail, Caesar salad, baked beans, potato salad, pasta salad, coleslaw, chili, marinated mushrooms, pickles, chips, crackers, dips, apple pie, cherry pie, brownie bites, ice cream and watermelon. And as if that’s not enough, I’m sure I’ve missed a few things.
Dancing was fun enough tonight. We started off with just four of us (Carl, Bill, Robert, and myself), but eventually Ernie, Wayne, and Rob joined us. Steve Cooper joined us in the last dance of the evening, which was the Mambo Shuffle. [Aside: OMG, that has got to be the prissiest version of that line dance ever.]
Carl and I laughed through one two-step—to a country version of This Land is My Land—when I substituted “golden shower” for “golden valley.”
We left shortly after dancing stopped at 10:30, as it was “bears in uniform” night, which to some extent is an oxymoron.
At home, after a cool, refreshing shower and slipping into clean, fresh sheets, Robert and I settled in to work on an Indy crossword puzzle, and after about 20 or 30 minutes drew lines all through it in frustration. Crappy clues. Unfun puzzle. I don’t think we’ve ever “thrown in the towel” on a puzzle with so little done before, but it was excruciating.