And what's the deal with dinner parties?

Dinner parties: a tradition unlike any other. Or the other.

Without trying to be Seinfeldian, I do wonder what the deal is with dinner parties. Sure, it's a great excuse to bring people over that 1) don't live in the neighborhood, 2) show off some culinary mastery and 3) yet another excuse to overeat...as if we don't have enough of those excuses lying around. But why in the hell would we (the collective I) need a reason to wash four times as many dishes as we usually do for one orchestral event?

I will contend that there is a nature versus nurture element to the reason behind dinner parties. The nature part is personified beautifully by The Lovely. The nurture part is clumsily portrayed by me. I always love a showdown especially since we won't have pro football this year.

The Lovely, as not to be her fault, was born into a social construct that always--ALWAYS--had a reason to party. Whether it be professional, family or the gray parts in between, her parent's house was ground-zero for any event you can imagine, except circuses. The Lovely's mom prepared all the food for nearly every event that was held at the homestead (save for the 30-35 party and our wedding, she was the cook).

On a recent trip back to Corpus, we scanned through volumes of cook books to find various softball dishes we could prepare without too much hassle. While scanning these cook books, The Lovely's mom had detailed, specific notes in the back of every cook book used and annotated dishes prepared and attempted, volume of ingredients and people hosted for every categorized party executed for the purpose of historical context .

For example [paraphrased]:
Uncle Joe's birthday
Invited: 100, attended: 94
Korean Steak x 7
No vegetarians
Dessert - cream pie, needed 4 gallons extra milk

The detail of these notes were astounding, like she was studying for med school and needed to know immediately where the insertion point of the latissimus dorsi was. It was as if Mom's innate skills and savvy was easily transferred to a double-helix of The Lovely's DNA. So, for The Lovely, it was in her nature to throw dinner parties.

I, on the other hand, needed to be trained for this like some rescued mutt from the animal shelter. I no longer mess on the rug, thankyouverymuch. Aside from the random birthday party I was rarely invited to, possibly because I messed up so many rugs, my learned sensibilities with dinner parties started just like it started with a lot of kids...at lunch time.

Granted, Styrofoam trays are not the wedding-gifted china and haphazardly-opened 1/2 pint milk cartons are not the glassware. However, you have to crawl before you can walk. Hell, you have to faceplant a couple of times before crawling is a viable option. You have to learn to sit still and enjoy pleasantries, like "I love pizza day" and "math is hard". But you learn that eating and sitting with people is not mutually exclusive. Later on in junior high and high school, the conversation [somewhat] evolves to where...hey, I like having discussions with people I [somewhat] chose to hang out with while eating food I normally don't eat! Victory. Somewhat.

Let's face it, I like dinner parties so I can hang out with people. The Lovely likes dinner parties because she wants to show off how kick-ass her ninja skills in the kitchen are. And just like a dinner party, we don't do this every day. So, we add a couple of bottles of wine, extend the serving time another two hours and go from there. It's in her nature and my nurture to have a party involving dinner every once in a while.

And now, just like The Lovely's parents, we seem to have a rotation going. Just as long as I don't backslide in to trading someone's side dish for double dessert, I think I will have the decorum down. Because I am still learning, you know.

Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) So, you have to have more of an athletic stance over the ball to where your hands will be directly over your chin. When your back is straight, you can rotate your shoulders naturally to where the weight of your body is balanced on the follow through. Then the ball will naturally straighten.
2) Gas prices will stay high until they are off the commodities market. No speculators, no problem.
3) So, the orange-infused vodka needed another day or so. Formula number 2 is not a total fail, it's just weaker in flavor than I imagined.

Well, April is quickly ending, just like the scenic views at PK Lake (ooh, too soon?). But there is one more cool thing that happens in April...The Draft...no, the other The Draft. Talk later.