4 posts tagged “friends”

• 13:44 Having an Irish-themed dinner party tonight. Guinness corned beef and Guinness cupcakes for all! #
• 16:56 Guinness cupcakes. While, initially putting a stick of butter into a cup of Guinness seems like a crime, the result is worth the time! #

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I've been having semi-monthly dinner parties since last November, I think, each with a potluck with a theme:  Cuban, Greek and, this month, Irish. Originally, I just said, "I'm nearly 30 and have never hosted a dinner party" and set about fixing that. Now, it's a great opportunity to open my home to my friends, share my table with some warm and entertaining people, and pass around great food.

Saturday's dinner had the highest attendance--we had to alter our table to fit everyone in and had to pull out my grandparent's china in order to have enough plates, etc. for everyone. A lot of work, a lot of clean up, but so very worth it. After every one of the dinner parties, I'm left with a great sense of happiness and that I'm close to living the life I want.

For those interested in such things, this last party's menu:

Starting with
* v * A selection of Irish cheeses served with crackers

Savoring
* * * Steak & Guinness Pie
* * * Guinness Corned Beef

Complemented by
* v * Soda Bread
* v * Colcannon
* v * New Potatoes with Rosemary
* v * Mushroom Soup

& Finishing with
* v * Apple Barley Pudding
* v * Irish Whiskey Cake
* v * Guinness Cupcakes

10:26 making coffee, plotting a day's museum visits & acknowledging how much I miss the NY-DC corridor #

Work sent me up to Maryland for a day's presentation and boss made it possible for me to remain there for the weekend, which I spent my college friend J. Living in Baltimore, I got used to seeing him fairly regularly and enjoying some shared rituals (going to the symphony and the MD Renaissance Faire, in particular). This weekend together made me nostalgic for those times, plus the sights and fun of this part of the East coast.

A smattering of memories from this trip:

• first time in Annapolis, on Solomon's Island, or at the National Archives
  
• great brick oven pizza, amazing beers (Fordham Oak Barrel Stout FTW)
• watching J watch Pitt men's basketball win two games and, Saturday night, enjoying the rivalry with local Georgetown fans
• The Cinema Effect at the Hirshhorn
• the goddamn Magna Carta, wow
• meeting two blokes who told us of standing line for 45 minutes to buy a $3 cupcake (some new fad place that had just opened that weekend in DC)
• spending a lazy Sunday on his couch, watching movies and just talkin'
  

From one of my best friends in a recent e-mail:

It would be nice to know mundane minutiae like this about my best friend--if she could maybe convince herself to send an email in response...

My response:

Hey, sweetie. I certainly did fall off the radar there for a bit, didn't I? I guess I've been coming to  terms, trying to understand what "normal" is in my new life. Thus far, it looks like this: 

Morning
Z goes to work around 7:30 every morning, and I get up around then (or press the snooze for 15 minutes...). I wake up my brother and feed kibble to every creature in the house (Iams for the cats, Beneful for the terrier, Honey Nut Cheerios for the kid), then get myself washed and ready for the day. I get M to PLACE anywhere from 8-9 and usually do some running around after he's dropped off (oil change, grocery shopping, wandering the craft store).

Afternoon
I get home by 11, have some sort of brunch-type snack, then sit down at my craft desk. For the last two weeks, I've been making cigar box purses, artist trading cards, and decorating store-bought journals. I usually do that until 3:45, when I walk out the door with Yoda and walk 4-5 blocks to meet M on his way home from school. That's usually the highlight of my day...walking with Yoda and chatting with M. When we walk in the door, M sits down right away to do his homework and, if it takes him less than 30 minutes, we whittle away some time on his upcoming invention convention project (he's making an update to the Trapper Keeper for today's techno kids). After schoolwork is done, we either play a game together or he buggers off to go skateboarding or play online games. If so, I hit the craft desk for some more time.

Evening
Around six o'clock, I start making dinner, and Z walks in the door any time from 6:15-6:40. This can make meals just a tad chaotic, but I've become a pro at getting M to set the table early and, if Z's late, just sticking stuff in the oven on "warm." We eat dinner together and share stuff about our days. M is becoming a much improved conversationalist, though we have to work more on him listening to others. At least twice a week, he says something that just cracks us up. This week, we were trying to explain to him what a non sequitur was, and he was having a hard time pronouncing the word. We explained that it was a pretty strange word, not originally English, and hard to spell. Much to our surprise, he got the spelling right on his second try! What a smart kid. After dinner, Z and M clean up, then we either play together or go our separate ways until 9pm, when M goes to bed. It's funny, I've gone to two parenting workshops in the last month, and many parents complain about problems relating to bedtime and getting homework done. But M is such a regimented child that we almost never have issues in this area. Sometimes he gets mad at the homework problems, but I never have to nag him to sit down and do it. Anyway, some nights Z and I watch TV together or play video games; if he's really tired, he just goes to bed, and I stay up late crafting.

Obviously, the amount of time I spend at the craft desk makes this pretty ideal (I've made three purses, two journals and countless ATCs), but there are a million setbacks every minute it feels like. I still have to meet with my mum's attorney, still have to open the box from the cremation society, still have to sit down with Z and write our wills out and determine who takes care of M if anything happens to us. Those are the big things, but there are little things too...Yoda staring at Mum's bed and whining, grabbing four napkins instead of three for dinner. One day last week, I just came home and cried on the couch for a couple of hours, eventually exhausting myself into sleep.

It's odd, last weekend was really nice. Z came home early on Friday. We cried together, made love, then went out for a drink and an appetizer before getting back home to pick up M. It was true quality time together, and I really felt his love and support. Friday night, Z stayed home with M while I went to a craft class and then out for drinks with R. R and I also needed some quality time, as he has been taking really good care of me during the week (stopping by for coffee in the morning, going to the grocery store with me, or even just dropping off blueberry muffins when I need to be alone), and I'm not always as grateful as I should be. Saturday, we hung out with M and did some shopping; M spent the night at a friend's house, and we went into Largo to celebrate L's birthday (strangely, by riding a mechanical bull). Sunday was a day of productivity, Z cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, while I did laundry. That afternoon, cuddled up on the couch, I said I'd had a good weekend--that I often felt silly or happy or friendly first, and sad second or third. It made me realize that's not true for most days...I am sad first and foremost, then all my other emotions come in a muddle afterwards. While it felt warm and good and honest to say then, now I just feel bad for feeling so bad most of the time!

This weekend, Mum's friend MC will be in town. We'll go out to dinner with her tonight, and then join her and her husband for brunch Sunday. I'm really looking forward to that. Saturday, Z and I have doctor's appointments in the morning, and I may take M up to a local festival that afternoon. Z and I also have to spend some time cleaning out the garage, as he's been buying cabinets from work to remodel our kitchen, and we need to better organize the space to store them. I'm not looking forward to that, as it will involve moving some of Mum's stuff around, and I'm not ready to make choices about those things (even things I know I won't be keeping, like her hats and wigs, I'm not ready to do anything with). Speaking of which, when I do feel ready to do something like that, it may be a great time to have you or E down. That would definitely require some handholding.

Next week, I'm going to apply for a great job I heard of through E's mother and make an appointment to get Ripley fixed. She's in heat right now and a great source of amusement for the household. I also meet with a grief counselor from Hospice and am struggling somewhat with what I want to get out of that session.

How's that for a nutshell of life? I'm sorry I've been distant. I don't know why I'm putting up this facade of enormous strength, but I guess it's what gets me through the days. It's been a month and four days, but I see her everywhere around me and yet somehow manage to be in denial, unable to understand that she's not here to share thing swith me: to laugh at the animals' antics, to feel pride in M, to talk about the next season of Project Runway, to enjoy the things I'm making, to see her new kitchen cabinets, to share a cup of coffee with outside by the pool. It tears me up. MC said this morning she once heard someone describe grieving as similar to learning to breathe underwater, and that rings so true for me right now. It's like doing this impossible thing, and all your instincts struggle against it. You need to do it, but every cell screams NO NO NO NO I CAN'T.

With love and appreciation for your polite "nudge,"
artgeek