I was bound and determined not to have another weekend of cleaning my room and staring off into space and sniffling sadly to myself and watching movies alone in the dark house. I mean, thatās fine and all, but thereās only so much hand-wringing I can stand. Also only so much finishing unpacking I can stand. I officially gave myself last week Off from the most annoying aspects of moving: the little details. I have a couple of paper bags and little cardboard boxes that are labeled things like āDisco Balls and Hawaiian Leis.ā I have a little triangle shelf thatās supposed to be for pictures and candles and pretty little tschotches but right now is devoted to, like, a jar full of nails, unpaid bills, a pair of scissors, and a basket full of gift-wrap ribbons. I have wall art that needs to be arranged upon the wall in a pleasing fashion without making too many pushpin holes in the walls because HEAVEN FORBID, according to my new landlord, that a hole be made in the walls because she JUST PAINTED and the world will SPIN OFF ITS AXIS should someone hang a picture. Anyway, taking the week off from shoehorning all my stuff into a new space was so pleasurable that I made an executive decision to take the whole weekend off from it too. I love executive decision-making. It is so satisfying.
Friday my housemate J had some folks over to grill out on our little backyard patio and I sneakily invited myself along. (This wasnāt very hard as I didnāt even have to put on flip-flops to do so.) We had a lovely dinner and I, ever a quick thinker, had been to the grocery store immediately before and came home with three types of ice cream because it was SO HOT this weekend in Seattle. Friday I think it was 95 degrees or something, and of course the windows in our house are painted shut and thereās no AC and I thought I might melt into a puddle on the floorā¦hence the three kinds of ice cream to dull the wet sticky yucky sweaty wilted pain. I slurped down a fruit pop before heading out to see Napoleon Dynamite. It was wonderful and horrifying and funny and amazing and cringe-inducing and I still canāt exactly put my finger on why it was so great, but it was and you ought to see it yourself so that you can explain it to me. I felt very fancy, going to a movie in the arty theater and paying nine dollars a mere three weeks after having seen Spiderman 2 or something. When did going to the movies become fancy for me? I cannot tell you.
Saturday it was also very hot and so naturally I decided to go help some friends move. I donāt own any shorts for some reason so I elected to help with the moving wearing a skirt with a big slit up the front, and flip flops. Wise choice on my part. Fortunately Katie and Ian had an air-tight Moving Plan as well as a lot of very nice friends with compact cars and minivans, so it wasnāt that rough. Maybe I am biased though because my own move is still fresh in my mind and also because when we got to their new place they had all sorts of delicious treats for us and made some homemade ice cream and all their moving friends who were not me are all improv actors and very funny and pretty so a good time was had by all, lounging around on the floor and eating chicken salad and making inappropriate comments about pretty much everything. I was sad that I couldnāt go to see their show later in the evening but I had to hustle on home and get into the shower again and get dressed up and head over to my friend Markās for another Fish Fin Dinner.
I shouldnāt even call them Fish Fin Dinners anymore because it was really only that one time that involved a flapping fish fin. Instead I should call them Dinners At Markās House Where He Makes Lots Of Delicious And Refined Food And Where Everyone But Chiara Is Also Delicious and Refined and They Talk About Mortgages And Taxes Even Though They Are Younger Than Chiara. Here was the menu for the evening:
Homemade Pizza with Olives and Onions On It That Mark Made While I Was Whining To Him In The Kitchen And Also Fanning Myself Because It Was Very Hot
Caprese Salad Which Looked Beautiful But Which I Didnāt Eat Because I Donāt Like Raw TomatoesāItās A Texture Thing
Grilled Meat and Grilled Polenta and Custard Made Out of Carrots and Also Some Scallops Which I Am Convinced Were Actually Made Out Of Delicious Butter
Watermelon Gelato, Food Of The Gods
Peaches and Mascarpone Cream, Also Food Of The Gods, And Let Me Tell You, Those Are Some Happy Well-Fed Gods
I eventually gave in to my impulse to shriek “I love strippers!ā and the conversation moved, slowly but inexorably, away from escrow and APR financing and the Democratic Party, shortcomings thereof, to more enlightening and compelling topics. I think I may have found a simple solution to any social situation that is bogged down in boring grown-up topics. It worked like a charm, I have to say. Try it! Itās fun!
So we chatted and laughed and I drank half a glass of champagne while everyone else talked knowledgeably about the wines they were drinking (my commentary was limited to āThat sure is red!ā) and I was glad to be friends with a man who makes custard out of carrots and whose pants have the most impeccable creases ever seen. I was glad that there were some impromptu fireworks across the lake and also that the sun finally went down and that I had air conditioning in my car, if not in my house. I was, most of all, glad that I ate that watermelon gelato.
Sunday I slept in late and did a bunch of laundryā¦so much, in fact, that I was forced to go on a bike ride in my pajamas. Do you have a problem with that? No? Good, me neither. Saturday when I rode to the library in just a shelf-bra cami and the aforementioned skirt with a slit up the front I was a little worried about people being offended by my on-display legs, but then I remembered that a) no one cares what I look like and b) even if someone does care, they will surely forgive me for being hot and sweaty and they will get on with their lives if they catch a glimpse of my hairy thigh. I extrapolated this principle to public pajama wearing and enjoyed the fact that it wasnāt three million degrees outside (Miami people, I know you are laughing at me right now. All I can say is that the blood thins after a while).
I futzed around the house for a while afterward (still in pajamas) and finally got myself dolled up to go out to dinner with some fabulous women I know. We were planning a Sex In The City type dinner, which was a little hard for me to imagine as Iāve only seen bits and pieces of the show and only knew that were supposed to wear Manolo Blahniks and drink martinis. In the car on the way over we started talking about dirty martinisā¦except we pronounced it ādeehhhrrrrttteh,ā as if we were Stewie from Family Guy. As in āYes, Iād like a deeeehhhhhhrrrrteh martini pleaseā¦and make it extra deeeehhrrrteh, you saucy trollop!ā This led, predictably, to discussing ordering an āabsolutely filthy martiniā¦garnish it with crude oil, would you?ā Peachy did indeed order just that, and the following conversation with the waiter (who LOVED us) ensued:
Peachy: Iād like a dirty martini, please.
Everyone Else: [giggles and pokes each other] Say it! Say it!
Peachy: As a matter of fact, could you make that aā¦filthy martini?
Skippy The Very Enthusiastic Waiter: [raises eyebrow] A filthy martini?
Peachy: Yes!
Skippy: Oh ho! So you like it like that, eh?
Peachy: Umā¦
Skippy: Yes! A filthy martini! Anyone else want something filthy?
Chiara: How about some deehhhrrrrtttteh fizzy water?
Skippy: Okay, thatās just gross.
Skippy, seriously, loved us. He kept coming by our table just to chat and flirt and ask us how everything was. He poured cheese over various items with a little flourish to his wrist. He ground pepper over our food in a lascivicious manner. āIs that martini filthy enough for you?ā he asked Peachy, seven or eight times. He told us that everyone in the kitchen loved us too, which is hard to imagine considering how much noise we were making, with the laughing and screaming and pounding the table. At one point I looked around and saw that everyone else in the restaurant was having nice and appropriately modulated dinner conversation and wasnāt asking Skippy for more cheese on the very fantastic mac and cheese we ordered. And then I felt sorry for those people because the girls they were with werenāt as hot as the girls I was with.
Well, thereās pretty much nowhere to go from a fun dinner like that except back to Peachyās house for not only Dance Dance Revolution but also the fantastic Karaoke Revolution. I think I would be afraid to play Dance Dance Revolution in like, an arcade or something, where you actually have to be good but I have had great success with home-based DDR, if by āgreat successā you mean āin looking like a complete and very sweaty fool.ā Which I did! But I donāt care! Because I love to dance! It is revolutionary!
Karaoke Revolution is pretty much just as fun, especially since you get to not only choose an avatar type thingy, but your avatar type thingyās outfit and also the venue in which your avatar type thingy sings. We started out with House Party (Peachy: āItās much more intimateā) but progressed on to āEnormobowl,ā which is what Sundry said sheād have to smoke before sheād sing. I personally sang, smoking no bowls whatsoever, āBizarre Love Triangle,ā āSon Of A Preacher Man,ā and a little bit of āChain Of Fools.ā I think I rocked hardest on the first, but thatās possibly because New Wave runs in my veins instead of blood. Well, no it doesnāt, but wouldnāt it be cool if every time you went to the doctor and they did a finger prick āBlue Mondayā came out? No? Okay. Anyway, I love karaoke and I am working up the nerve to one day actually perform in public around people who are not nice and loving and tolerant like my friends.
And then I got in my car and went home and put fresh sheets on the bed and read a little of From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and thought about how lucky I am to have good friends who will put up with my company and give me good fun weekends when I donāt want to unpack yet more boxes. I should find a way to put all these good people into the boxes Iām currently supposed to be emptying, and then never unpack them ever.