Blog

The past weekend was relatively uneventful, which was exactly what I needed.

On Friday evening, my husband and I rented a DVD of Dave Chapelle’s Block Party and ended up watching all of the extras, too.

On Saturday morning, I got up around 8:30 a.m. and went to a large farmers’ market to get produce.  I bought tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, eggplant, a green pepper, sweet corn and new potatoes from a combination of Mennonites, hippies and small-town farmers.  I bought stuff until my shopping bag got too heavy to carry, and I only spent about $9.00.

I went home by way of a regular grocery store (I needed bacon and I hadn’t thought to buy Mennonite bread) and made veggie omelets for breakfast.

The rest of the day wasn’t quite so productive.  I meant to get a few things done, but I was kind of tired and it was easy to laze around and watch it rain, which it did most of the afternoon and early evening.

I finally got moving again around 6:45, just as the rain stopped.  I had a ticket to the roller derby, so I went there and met up with a group of friends.  I sat on the floor at the edge of the rink until a falling roller girl came barreling into me.  After that, I decided I’d stand.

Foregoing the after-party in favor of an early bedtime, I managed to sleep until 8:30 Sunday morning and then from 8:30 until 10 on the couch when it turned out I wasn’t really ready to get up yet.

After one more trip to the grocery store, I spent much of the day cooking.  I made breakfast, salsa, two dishes for a Soroptimist Club Ronald McDonald House dinner, and ended the day grilling burgers and steaming corn and new potatoes for our dinner.

It wasn’t the most productive weekend I’ve ever had, but at least I got a decent amount of rest.  Now I just need to make it through one more work week before the four-day weekend!

With everything else going on this week, there was one annoying constant:  itching insect bites from last weekend’s party and party prep.

The chiggers got my ankles and one knee.  It’s kind of hot in my office, so the bites itch pretty much all day long, but I tune them out as much as I can.

The chigger bites are nothing compared to the piece de resistance, a spider bite on my upper right arm.  It itches, too, and also sports an alarming 1.5-inch diameter round, red blotch.  Believe me, I looked up spider bites online to make sure it wasn’t going to dissolve my flesh.  After a week, this is as bad as it gets.

When I was growing up, nature was much closer and nastier.  We couldn’t play outside until our parents checked the peony bushes for rattlesnakes and copperheads.  Thanks to the snakes, we weren’t allowed to go into the barn by ourselves.  All summer long there were ticks everywhere and the dogs would be covered with them.  We had plants in our back yard that produced little "stickers" that would stick painfully in your bare feet.  There were nettles in the woods and thistles out by the barn.

Now that I live in the ‘burbs, I’ve gotten spoiled.  We have less than a half acre of yard, yet I complain about every case of poison oak and chigger bite I get when I’m out there.  I start to think it might be fun to move into the city and live in a loft.  Then if I need a nature fix, I can just go to a park!

I won’t do that, though.  I’d probably never go back to a more rural existence, but I’m pretty happy with our big expanse of yard.  I just need to learn to apply repellant from now on.

Last night was my installation as president of my local Soroptimist club.  I’m still not quite sure why they picked me.  When I end up at board meetings wearing jeans, a t-shirt and my Converse All-Stars while everyone else is dressed in business attire, you’d think the "which of these things is not like the others" vibe would give everyone pause.

It’s especially intimidating given that our particular club was chartered in the 1920s and we have archives filled with photos of former members wearing hats and white gloves to the meetings.

Even though the club is definitely not "high society" anymore, I’d hate to be the person who lowers its standards one more notch.  That’s why I usually dress up on meeting days, even though it tends to make people at work suspect that I’m out interviewing on my lunch break.  (For the record, I’m not.)

Because I am a huge procrastinator, I wrote the outline of my "theme for the year" speech just moments before I left work.  The outline turned out to be a bad idea because I can really only organize my thoughts when I’m writing.  When I had to stand up and talk through the topics in front of people, I was nervous enough that I rambled, skipped over stuff I’d meant to talk about, and eventually ditched the last two sections.

From now on when I have to give a speech, I’ll know to just write the whole thing out and at least have it available for reference if I don’t want to stand there and read it verbatim.  I should have joined Toastmasters back when I had more free time.

Before the installation, people kept asking me, "Are you ready to be president?"

My answer then and now, "I don’t know.  I guess we’ll see."

I’ve purchased a 12-month accordion file so I can keep track of my paperwork (for once) and a separate calendar to make sure I don’t miss any important deadlines.  I’ve given every club member my e-mail address and cell phone number so they can reach me whenever they need something. 

Beyond that, I’ll just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best.  Wish me luck!

I woke up on Saturday morning and immediately checked the weather forecast:  60% chance of rain, thunderstorms likely from 4:00 p.m. on.

"It’s not going to rain on my party," I thought.  I may have even said it aloud.

The morning was sunny and beautiful as I ate breakfast and started gathering food and drink for the party.  It began to get more overcast as I weeded flower beds and cut down volunteer trees.

My husband was extremely wary of my plan to continue as though it wouldn’t rain.  I agreed to take things slowly.  We only set up one table at first, and just two speakers and my least valuable amp to play MP3s.

Four o’clock rolled around and we were still trying to get the grill started, copying music onto the iPod, tidying up, etc.  Half past four…quarter to five…nobody came.  I sent an e-mail to everyone who had RSVPed that said, "The party’s on!  It’s not raining, we have all the food and we’re moving forward."

Finally, the first guest arrived a little before five.  After that, people started rolling in and the party was in full swing by six.  We had musicians grouped on the deck, people with children on blankets in the yard, and islands here and there of couples who couldn’t be immediately convinced to mingle.

Some of the first wave left between seven and eight, and the second wave arrived just after nine.  We actually ran out of beer and I had to make a run up the street to buy another case.

Many of the nine o’clock crowd were just party-hopping and left after an hour or so.  Right around ten-thirty, I heard thunder.  The remaining guests helped us move all of the chairs, PA gear, food and drinks inside, and the party split between our studio and living room.

I stayed in the living room chatting with the last three guests until they left at two a.m.  The final guest (who was also the first to arrive) didn’t leave until three-thirty a.m., but I left my husband to deal with him and went to bed a good hour before that.

All in all, we had more than thirty guests.  There were enough leftover chips and cookies that I’m not quite sure where to put them all.  Everyone seemed to have a great time, I got a new business lead for my company, and my husband got to show off his studio, which always makes him happy.

And now that I know I can will it not to rain on my parties, I’m determined to throw outdoor events more often!

It is such a crapshoot to have an outdoor party in the Midwest.  Last year’s party was in October and it rained.  Our 2004 party was Labor Day weekend and the weather was beautiful.  Tomorrow, well, there’s a @#$%* 50% chance of rain.

My husband and I had a long talk yesterday about whether we wanted to just go ahead and cancel our party.  I decided that I’m too much of an optimist.  I’ve ignored the weather forecast before and had it pay off, so hope springs eternal.

The plan is to go ahead and get all the food, drinks and ice for the party.  The worst that can happen if it’s thunderstorming when the party is supposed to start is that we put the meat in the freezer, keep the drinks for later and maybe end up throwing away the hot dog and hamburger buns.

We won’t set up any sound equipment outside, just to save us the hassle of dragging it all to safety if it starts raining.  It won’t be the end of the world if we’re forced to rely on a boom box and CDs.

In other news, I moved to a new desk at work yesterday.  Now I’m in an office – with a window – instead of a cubicle, and I have one officemate.  I really liked where I sat before but I don’t mind mixing things up now and then.  The only weird thing about sitting in the same room as someone else is that it makes me hyper-aware of every time I talk to myself, sigh heavily, etc.  I guess I’m going to have to stop singing lightly under my breath when I’m listening to iTunes, too.

Have a nice weekend, everyone.  And keep your fingers crossed for me that it doesn’t rain until Sunday here!

It’s starting to sink in that I have more than 40 people coming over on Saturday and I really haven’t done much to prepare.

I always have our big parties outside because our house is way too small to accommodate more than four or five guests.  That means I need to weed my flower beds, clean off the deck and patio and hose down the outdoor furniture.  People will come into the house no matter what, so I have to at least have every publicly-viewable surface cleaned off, clear a path to the half bathroom in the junk room we call a guest room, and make our bed.

Then there’s the shopping.  I’m springing for hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, plates, charcoal, a case of soft drinks and a case of beer.  After that it’s all potluck, so let’s hope I don’t end up with 20 bags of chips and nothing more.  I’ve learned from experience that people will bring beer even when I clearly state on the invitation that I’m getting kegs, so I just don’t bother to spend a lot on it anymore.  I’ve returned too many half-full kegs and it breaks my heart.

My cleaning lady is coming over today to deal with the worst of the grime.  She was just here a week ago Tuesday, but we can’t keep our house clean for even a week with three cats and two human slobs in residence.  The studio:  too messy to bother with.  The door stays locked (unless my husband wants to tackle it).

I don’t have any free evenings between now and the party, but fortunately we scheduled it to begin at 4 p.m.  I don’t want to exhaust myself that morning and afternoon, but I should have enough cushion to shop, set up and take a break before people arrive.  I hope.

It it wrong that I’m already looking forward to sleeping in on Sunday?

I have an early meeting today, so here are a few sites I’ve run across lately that I thought were worth sharing:

• Teacher and the Rockbots – Who says kids’ music has to be boring?  This stuff rocks and it’s educational, too!  I think I know what I’m getting my niece for Christmas this year…
• Here are two blogs about creativity that I found interesting:  the martini shaker* and Creative Generalist.  Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity as a discipline, and these both offer great reading on the subject.
• Ever since I worked for a birth announcement printing company in my younger days, I’ve been fascinated by the names people choose for their babies.  (That job was right in the midst of the Caitlin/Katelyn/Caitlyn/Kaitlin era.)  Here’s an interesting map of popular baby name styles in the U.S. by region that I found via Pop Culture Junk Mail.
• Affordable Views are faux windows in various styles designed, presumably, to decorate windowless rooms.  They remind me of the outdoor scene that my grandmother once painted and used to cover the real window in one of her bathrooms.

That’s all for today.  Yay!  The week’s almost half over!