A post in which I go to a lovely pool party

Today was the big day. And I had a lot to do. Since I stayed in last night, I was up early. I went on to the flea market and got all my produce this morning – I ended up buying so much that they gave me a box to carry it in. That was a first. I also got another little Glasbake baker for a couple of dollars, a pound cake pan like Eve’s that I had been looking for forever, and some cereal. So it was a red-letter day at the flea market. When I got home I put everything away and lay around for a bit, but ultimately I had to get moving and straighten up the house some since Nicole was coming over.

I had talked to Christina about whether or not to bring anything today, and she left it up to me. I thought about making some bars, but then thought it would be too hot for that, and finally just ended up not making anything. I would have been rushed, and would have had to heat up the house, and basically I just didn’t feel like it. Of course when I got to the party I thought of the perfect thing to bring – a batch of caponata would have been great, and I had seen some beautiful Asian eggplants just that morning, but I wasn’t thinking about that then. I’ll take it next time.

I started watching Annie this morning while I was straightening up, mostly to see how Kathy Bates did as Miss Hannigan. She was pretty good, but played it too straight for me. I really liked Carol Burnett’s performance a lot more, but then I guess for me that would be pretty much par for the course. I know I have wondered lately why some works survive and others don’t. With Annie, it’s pretty much a no-brainer. Whatever the financial status (and since we’re in the new Depression, I guess the timing makes more sense now than it did in 1999, when this version was made), and whatever your age, aren’t we all waiting for someone to come to us and say “You always belonged with me, and I have always loved you.”? Yeah, I thought about that for a while today.

Then As Good As It Gets came on, and I started watching that. I almost didn’t get ready on time because I was so caught up in it. Watching that movie now, from an older perspective, makes some of the profundities available to me that weren’t before. I need to see if that’s available in OnDemand. I’d really like to sit and watch it again.

Eventually, I did get everything together, and was ready by the time Nicole got to the house. We ran a few errands and headed to the party. This one was much more mixed than the last one I went to. I was rather disconcerted to see kids playing in the pool when we got there. It turns out that Christina’s friend since 6th grade, her husband, and their kids were there. At first I have to admit to being non-plussed, but it really turned out to be fine. The kids were 3 and 6, so double-entendres still pretty much went over their heads. Plus they were well-behaved and nice, which always helps. All things considered, it was pretty smooth.

Then I met daddy. His name is George. And I kind of fell in love with him a little bit. Good looking, funny, smart, a great dad, nice – and local. I had a very enjoyable conversation with him in the pool about art, of all things. It almost made it hard for me to objectify him for his looks. I had to hate his wife. I told her later , and asked her if she realized she was married to the Loch Ness Monster. She said she did, but was spoiled for him now. Lucky her.

There were two bizarrenesses in the evening. One was that there was a person there who in the past has had problems with Nicole. They were both on their best behavior, and Nicole really was bucking for an Oscar by the end of the evening, but it made me a tad nervous from time to time. The other oddness was that a friend of mine (whom I really do like a lot) had brought her new boyfriend to the party with her. He was significantly younger than her, and looked even younger than his actual age. That, I am kind of used to dealing with. But he was – odd. He acted like a much younger guy. When I first saw him, I thought, “Who brought their teen-ager with them?” He looked about sixteen or so, but acted even younger than that. He happily played with the kids most of the afternoon (leaving hunk-dad free to talk to me, so I wasn’t complaining), but afterwards we were kind of flipping a coin to see who had baby-sitting duty next. This was complicated by the fact that my friend left the party for a bit, and we were kind of stuck there with him. It was just a very strange situation. He was apparently very into video games, and spoke in a kind of lingo that just let me know we had absolutely nothing in common. I got the impression he had wandered off from a sci-fi convention somewhere. It felt kind of like when your awkward cousin moves prematurely to the adult table at Thanksgiving. Eventually, my friend came back, and he spent most of the rest of the evening by her side. But it was undeniably strange. I just couldn’t figure out the attraction, because the woman he's with is actually pretty cool and with-it.

It was a lovely party though, and we all had a good time. It was good to see the gang and get to talk to everyone. The water was lovely. We grilled out, ate supper, had cocktails, and talked and laughed into the evening.