‘The’ Party

I was so proud of myself in our party planning as I ‘compared’ myself to the parties my parent threw when I was a child.  I hadn’t ‘fallen’ apart over party preparations all week (unlike the way my mother might have) and I/we were really ready.  Who knew that Washingtonians show up to a party on time!  Not only on time, but some were even a few minutes early…early?  No one is early in California.  The good news was we were prepared.  (Unlike the parties my parents had where my mother was always running through the house to get dressed as the first car pulled into the driveway.)  Yep, I am not my mother and I was really sort of patting myself on the back.  Except…. I do remember doing some strange stuff over this party planning, which I can sort of admit now…  The fact that my kids went along with my odd ‘pre-party’ requests, just proves I’m afraid that they are quite aware that this is just my way of dealing with normal pre-party stress and will be patting themselves on the back someday that they didn’t do the strange thing or things I did/do.

My Loving Spouse was just grilling the last of the sausages as the first guests arrived, but luckily for all, the taps had been set on the beer and hard cider and quality control was well underway.  My sons spent the evening bringing me glasses of hard cider and saying, “This is from the gentleman across the room”, pointing to my other son who would then nod and wink at me.  I do love those goofball boys of mine.

The party had just gotten underway, when all the lights went out.  Yep, we’d tripped a circuit breaker.   I had no idea My Loving Spouse could move so fast.  He got down the stairs, out of the barn and into the nearby workshop to reset the circuit breaker, with what could only be called lightening speed.

We had no idea really how many to expect.  Would all who said they were coming show up? (Yes, they did).  With 4 different family members issuing invitations, sometime last week we lost track of any believable head count, or maybe we just couldn’t believe they all really wanted to come…but we were excited…overwhelmed…and wondering the greatest party question of all ages…”Did we have enough food?”

…and would they ‘like’ it….  We did and they did!  I was so touched and a tad proud that our beets (grown and pickled here) were a hit!    The smartest thing we did…let the guests bring the desert…cookies (my favorite food group), wonderful cookies plenty for all to share.

I’d dreamed of wonderful ‘Pinterest’ pictures, but really…yep, it wasn’t going to happen.  We were too busy enjoying our party…our guests who came, to share our new home and our special barn with us….to busy meeting the kids friends as well as My Loving Spouse’s co-workers and families.  We have the pictures we do, because of Number One Wife’s Dad who not only came from the farthest away (Pennsylvania) but agreed to snap up pictures as well for which we are so very grateful.  (Yes, he has a thing for the Damn Cat and gets the cutest pictures of her).

Kids danced, My Loving Spouse danced with me and Number One Son danced with me (under duress, but I played the Mom card).  Our country friends would have danced more, or so they say, except we’ve only come so far…we don’t know that much country music.  Well, who knows when and if we throw another barn party, perhaps we will have acquired a little boot stompin’, two steppin’ tunes.

We’d planned nothing beyond Saturday night, so when the 12 people who were spending the night woke up here, we’d had no breakfast plans what so ever.  We’d run out of milk, the hens are molting and barely laying, I figured left over party cookies (oatmeal) would suffice and called those good.  One of our younger (21-year-old) guests took a different approach and learned that Cheerios and beer do NOT mix.

So, what was that thing?  That strange pre-party stress thing I might have done?  Well…we were expecting a nice large crowd…and the barn is far from the house and the house is on a septic system, which fills up, if you know what I mean.  We ordered a porta-potty which was delivered early.  Being a good hostess, I wanted to make sure it was clean before our guest used it, so I checked it and was I impressed!  Not only was it sparkling clean, but it smelled good.  No, not good, it smelled great.  It smelled so great, that when Number One Son showed up, I made him go smell it.  I know, pre-party strangeness, which I realize now is a tad…odd (sorry, mom for thinking your pre-party acts were odd)….and no, since the party and it getting ‘used’ I’ve no desire to smell it.