Friday, September 19, 2003

Here’s to Absent Hosts

Last sunday we had friends over for brunch and lunch.  The house was full of people and food and music, and as is typical of me at such times, I was a little hyper.  After all, there were souflees to bake, yuca to fry, carnitas to shred and a dutch oven in which it had been cooked to be deglazed for the gravy, bean salad and fruit salad and oh goodness so many other details to attend to - so when someone thrust a packet of photos into my hand I went through them rather perfunctorily.  Nice photos of several of my friends at my house; their babies were cute, the house looked great… I didn’t even notice that neither Kel nor I appeared in any of the pictures.  It was hours later that I got a second look and the whole story: we had left for LA to visit my parents.  Nool and Deb were visiting from the Windy Apple; Dave and Kimmela had been recruited to visit our diabetic cat and poke her with needles, and Andy and Heidi were in town for the evening from the wilds of upper east Berkeley.  Everybody came to our place and hung out for an hour or so, the three under-three-year-old girls trying to play with Rufus, our breathtakingly passive cat, the adults testing our couches for softness, hidden doors and secret treasure.  From the photos, everybody had a great time - even Rufus. It was a cozy little party, and I hadn’t just missed it - I hadn’t lifted a finger to make it happen.

It’s nice to realize that you can host a decent party from 500 miles away.  It’s just a little weird to discover that it’s happened after the fact, when I’ve got a house full of 25 friends on whose behalf I’d utterly exhausted myself in preparing for another party.  Maybe next time I should send out invitations and just leave town.  It looks like people would enjoy themselves anyway and I wouldn’t have so many slices in my thumb from the mandoline.

I’m confused.  How did they all get inside your house?

I guess I left that part out.  Dave and Kim had a key so they could shoot the cat.  Everybody else was visiting them and they all caravanned over together to our place.  Sort of like a hotel room, but with a maxi-bar instead of a minibar.

the full story is that we were missing you two, since you had had to go away that weekend despite knowing that several things were going on that you were intended to be a part of, dinner out with neil and deb on saturday night being one of them. after dinner we all still wanted to hang, and kim and I had to go care for rufus, so we brought the others along for the ride. we took pictures so that you could at least see evidence of the fun.

I am very sensitive to the fact that we did not have your permission to bring anyone else into your house. I can personally assure you that no one messed with anything, opened anything, etc. even so, I’ll admit that I felt (and still feel) a bit guily about the whole thing.

I didn’t tell you about it until I had the pictures, so that it would be a fun surprise. hope it didn’t backfire too much.

dude, your expression of trepidation is so totally superfluous.  But the fact that you’d even think that I might have had any problem with you bringing my closest friends over to the house in lieu of my being able to spend time with them myself - that makes me all the happier that I have friends like you.  To say I’m cool with it would have been a major understatement.  I’m positively GLAD it happened.

well in that case we like totally fucked with your shit, and shit.

just kidding, of course we didn’t. see, I still feel a little bad about it. you of course remember the incident with my underwear and the inflatable sheep, right?

you guys crack me up!  i surely wish that i had a group of college friends like dan`s.  i am glad that you guys are my friends by extension!

forget this mushy crap if i don’t hear about UNDERWEAR AND INFLATABLE SHEEP i swear i am going to THROW SHIT DOWN, yo.

I was once put in charge of organizing yet another college friend’s bachelor party. it was going to be (by his request) dinner, strip club, then late-night party with the women too at someone’s house. while we were at the strip club, some of the afore-mentioned women went into my apt, using a key that I had given to one of them, took underwear from my drawer, and put it on an inflatable sheep that they had purchased. so after centerfolds, when the guys got to the party house, the sheep wearing my underwear was there on the entry stairs to greet us.

the bachelor guy had been a roommate of mine in sf, in noe valley, on castro street. the note on the sheep said “we’ll always have the castro.”

and of course they chose the most embarrasing of all the underwear.....

Crap, I thought you meant Mandolin.

I need to know: What ARE carnitas?  A friend of mine asked me just the other day and my training in Spanish made me reply “small, cute meat.”

Carnitas seems to be a generic term for baked (or sometimes fried) pork. I put my basic recipe for it here.  These days I keep the lid on the dutch oven when I sear the meat and it makes the ambient air quality a bit less oppressive while infusing the meat with a rich smoky flavor.  The end result is ridiculously easy to eat. 

However, I think the translation “small cute meat” has some real value.  I think maybe a line of t-shirts or handbags?

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