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[ we have temporarily
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"...she felt if only they
could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to
combine, to create, but to whom?."
Virginia Woolf's character Clarissa
Dalloway (who is giving a party) in Mrs. Dalloway
It is not enough to be h
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toast the new
The club will close early today and besides I have a couple of things
to put together for Dad's party. So I'm off for a workout at 8 o'clock.
When I get home from the club at 9:30, it doesn't seem like I have that
much to do. Clean and slice up vegies for dip, make some deviled eggs
and make some of these cheese pastry twists using already made puff pastry
sheets.
I turn on the TV in the big room and put on Babette's Feast which
puts chopping and mixing in the right light. I put 18 eggs on to boil.
I start chopping vegies. When the eggs are done I cool them and peel them
and slice them in half and put the white halves in the deviled egg dishes---
special Tupperware™ boxes for transporting deviled eggs (so sixties!)--and
the yellows in a mixing bowl. I finely chop ripe olives and green onions,
add mustard, mayo and spices until it tastes OK and fill the eggs.
I finish slicing and dicing the vegies (broccoli, zuchinni, yellow squash,
green onions, mushrooms, carrots) and stowing them in Tupperware™.
Along the way I'm trying to clean up the mess.
I heat the oven to 425 and start making the pastry things, rolling out
the dough (thawed out pastry sheets), mixing grated parmesan and spices,
making an egg wash, making two layers and putting the cheese mixture in
between, cutting and twisting. It started from a recipe from Epicurious
but I've changed several things. I keep the cooking time: 10 minutes at
425. I make four batches and cook each ten minutes, cool on racks (who
HAS racks? I take the rack out of my toaster over and balance one intended
for my old microwave between two pans, put them in tupperware to be reheated
later.
This takes until 12:30. I'm surprised at how long it took. I'm surprised
that the maid hasn't arrived. I quickly go take a shower and get dressed.
When she does arrive she says she has had car trouble. Wrecks and car
trouble seem to be her daily bread. I suggest that she can go to someone
else's house if she needs to do it, but she says she needs the work.
I get stuff together
and take it to my Dad's. At my house, I can pull out things like champagne
flutes, I know where things are. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any flutes
although I think he has glasses that will do for wine. I pack up some
flutes, not many just a dozen, it's a small party with, probably, few
drinkers. I get some sparkling wine, white and red together in a wine
box. I put all the Tupperware™ containers of vegies, bread, eggs
in white sacks form a take-out place. I put all this in my car along with
a vintage deco roll warmer, my card table (which Dad asks me to bring),
leftover candy and cookies, and go to his house.
It's really amazing
the preparation he made. He bought barbecue, made chili, made black-eyed
peas (not from a can, dried beans cooked with ham bone), cubed cheeses,
arranged pickles and olives. The most precious thing is that he has found
all these plastic cups, paper plates, paper plate holders made from wicker,
plastic forks, spoons, knives and assorted glass relish dishes to use.
He has Mom's old punch bowl out and puts an ice ring in it and makes a
wine punch. For old times sake, I put chips and dip in her chip and dip
bowl. (How sixties!) Come to think of it, there are reminders of her everywhere
in the service. We put everything out, I heat some of my bread in the
toaster oven and gradually, starting slightly before party time, people
arrive.
Mostly Dad's older
friends with a few of the neighbors and SuRu show up. Several bring elaborate
food...a take out tray of shrimp, a homemade cheese ball. more candy (Dad
and I have put out his leftovers and mine), a great Italian bread thing
with meat and cheese wrapped up (this was the hit for sure, yum), cole
slaw. We serve people punch (yes, it has wine I say several times), water,
wine. The red and sparkling party wines I've brought go over well with
a few discriminating people. Some people like my deviled eggs. (Although,
there is so much food that not all 32 halves were eaten. And, yes,
it takes 18 eggs to make 32 halves because there are always some aberrant
ones that can't be used in an artful display.
The party is a little
slow, but people seem delighted to be there. Games don't get started.
I would have liked to play a game or two in honor of mom. At one point,
after SuRu and some younger friends of dad's had moved on to other parties,
FFP and I watched football in Dad's office for a little while. When I
went back through the living room there were men on one side, women on
the other and, on the glassed-in porch, Dad talking to two women who had
come alone.
Finally, before midnight,
everyone moves on. Some can't stay up that late and a few have promised
younger relatives a visit for the midnight toast. We figure we might as
well clean up. Then the door rings and there are the next-door neighbors
bringing a pumpkin pie. They've been to Symphony Pops. There are so young
and fresh. We talk and convince him to drink some champagne and try some
black-eyed peas for luck ("It's a Southern tradition," I say
to Satesh, himself an East Indian, not many generations in the U.S.) Amy
(I think it is) confesses she's pregnant and drinks some sparkling apple
cider.
Things aren't really
clean, but we have put aways a lot of things, put all our leftovers in
the car (and some Dad has given us), cleaned and packed up the champagne
flutes and the leftover wine. Dad looks a little forlorn but says he can
handle it from here. We figure...might as well get home while everyone
else is waiting to toast. SuRu brought FFP so he drives (I drank) and
we go home. The streets seem deserted, people mostly having lit somewhere
until midnight. At midnight, I'm in bed, reading short stories and I don't
notice the clock move to the hour. Two thousand and three. It hardly seems
possible. I remember thinking that writing years like '2000' and figuring
out what to call them in conversation was so strange. Now, it's 2003,
probably '03 to the young folks. It's well into the 21st century.
The resolutions. Yep,
it has to be done. I'm writing this in 2003, of course, on a page dated
December 31, 2002. But I've thought about my resolutions all week. They
are not that different than always except...there is no work resolution
unless you count some of my day-to-day activities as my work. So here
goes:
- Lose five pounds. [This is a
easy goal, it would seem. THe spam says '32 pounds in three weeks' or
'12.5 pounds in three days' but, no, my goal is to lose five more pounds
and stay there.]
- Drink more water.
- Eat more healthy food. Fruit!
Vegetables! Every day.
- Write! Not just this journal.
All the short stories I've outlined. All the essays. Start on the novels
and non-fiction books.
- Find an appropriate volunteer
activity.
- Travel and, when I do, take the
time to prepare by reading books.
- Pay more attention to investments
and our budget. Save money.
- Continue my workouts and start
playing tennis and maybe racquetball.
- Take Bridge lessons and learn
more about Bridge.
- Cook more. Start making crêpes
again.
- Get the closets, garage, drawers,
shed, yard, storage room clean and keep them that way.
- Learn to make a movie.
- Learn more about photography.
- Geez, this list is too long...make
shorter lists.
- Ride the bus and write about
it.
- Get my mother's things sold or
given away or packed and sent to my relatives.
- Read more books.
- Do some Windows programming and
JavaScript and learn Linux.
- Hmmm...it's the same every year,
isn't it? Why don't I make one list for all time (work harder, read,
write, exercise, eat better, learn stuff, save money, lose weight, be
a better person).
People said last night that they
didn't make resolutions so they wouldn't break them. I don't know, making
resolutions seems to signify that people can change (can they really?),
that they need to, that there is hope. Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't make
any!
The future of the
journal is always called into question by the turning of the calendar.
After all, I have to set up new little calendars on the archive page.
And, at the end of a year, I should probably archive more. Then you think:
should I do it every day? Should I have a quote, 'just typing' column,
a picture? What are the rules, the new rules? Well, I haven't decided.
I'm going to finish this entry, banish the archives down a level and then
think about it. That's what I'm going to do. Yep.
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JUST
TYPING