PARTY ON!!!

By the day before the party, I had begun muttering, "These are friends coming over. This is not House Beautiful coming to photograph, or the Food Network arriving to preview my show premise. It's OK. Friends. Family. Loved ones. Not uncaring corporate monsters. Friends. Family. Not perfect = OK."

I think I may have been creeping our guests out a little with it. Especially when I'd stare through them and chant it. "Frieeeeeends... fammmmily... ooooooohm..."

The party was very loud. And also? A lot of food was eaten. My Lord, a lot of food was eaten. I mean, seriously. We went through the better part of four full trays of BBQ. We noshed our way through two Costco sized boxes of hors d’oeuvres. Six of the nine pies I ended up making were eaten. Eight dozen petit fours? Gone, baby. Plus also a Costco bag of Chex mix, two large vegetable platters, a fair chunk of the Largest Vat of Vegetarian Chili Ever Attempted, and two vegetarian lasagnas. Three cheese trays. And about a vault’s worth of crackers.

However, I thought it very telling about our demographic that when you look in our recycling, there are more empty water bottles and soda cans than beer. And also, while we did manage to kill the brandy and the whiskey, there is still much hard liquor left over. Oh, darn the luck – we still have most of the Grey Goose vodka. Shoot, whatever shall I do with the stuff?!

Another sign of our obvious, erm, maturity: The house was not destroyed. When we got up Sunday morning to face the music…behold, the music was Mozart.

Our friends rock. They party, yet destroy not the Den. **sniff** I love you guys.

However, today is a ‘sick’ day for us. I’m OK (other than all my major joints, which are forming a committee and I believe writing a well-thought-out letter of protest), but the husband is all funned out, and the two younger Denizens are really honestly not feeling well. Boo Bug is sick-sick, and Captain Adventure is ‘there was another toddler in my house for three days and I suspect perhaps I need to remark my turf’ sick.

However, your faithful correspondent ran out of ambition at about 6:30 last night. I did great all day Saturday and most of the day yesterday, but finally slammed my nose into the No Ambition wall at 6:30 and honestly? I’m having trouble motivating myself enough to get the Roomba running. The dumb thing vacuums the room all by itself…but first you have to {ungh} get up {oooooooh}, walk over to the remote {grooooooan} and push the button {agony-agony-agony}.

Eh. I’ll get to it eventually. Right after I finish, uh, checking my email. And drinking the rest of the coffee we have in the house. And maybe the first sleeve of Eldest’s sweater. Oh yeah, and planning Thanksgiving, which I forgot all about in the heat of battle until my husband said yesterday afternoon, “Hey, what are we doing next weekend?” in vaguely hopeful tones (as in, ‘maybe we could just ignore all the remaining cleanup until…’) and I looked at the calendar and I said, “Oh, no, we’re home because…of…getting ready for…{sob sob} Thanksgiving…!”

We looked at each other from across the room and said, in unison, “Aw, CRAP!”

And then we dissolved into semi-hysterical laughter because honestly – what else can you do?! ‘Tis the season, ho ho ha ha la la twinkle-bell jolly holly turkey-n-stuff la-dee-DAH!

Just remember: This all about fun and joy, dammit! If you can just remember that, everything else will fall into place.