Worst. Party. Ever.

In the inimitable words of Comic Book Guy . . . .

I attended the Worst. Party. Ever. this past weekend.

First, some backstory. Longtime readers may recall that I have a circle of friends, some inherited from my husband, and some that I added to the mix after meeting the ringleader of a huge pack of brilliant dorks during one of my contracting engagements. The latter belong to a circle that could only be described as "eccentric". Other names also fit the bill:

Nerdly
Socially Inept
Virginal

Now, granted, Atlanta has more than its fair share of Nerdlingers - I blame Tech. They flock here, Texas Instruments calculators and NHS medals in tow. Once graduated, many of them settle uncomfortably among us "regular" folk to begin a life bereft of social interaction and chock-full of dorky, geeky pursuits like gaming conventions, ToysRUs stalking and anime porn collecting. But every once in a blue moon, one attempts to scale the cravasse, to make a connection, to be . . . . social.

So it was that I received an email from one of my Nerdlinger friends last week. It was brief, and appeared to be both to and from him (he had put all of his attendees in the bcc: field to protect their anonymity, I guess. He is a real stickler for privacy issues, which is funny, because there is no one else on earth with less to shield from prying eyes than this guy.) The gist of the message is that he was throwing a housewarming party for himself and his two new roomates who had recently all moved into a 3 bedroom apartment together. I won't even go into the ridiculousness of 3 grown, nearly 30 year old men sharing a 3 bedroom apartment when each on his own earns enough to support a family, yet they always appear 2 steps from poverty and appear to get their furniture and clothing from the Goodwill while getting their computers from NASA.

Anyhoo . . . the email listed the party as beginning at 12:00 noon and lasting until "whenever". Now, I am no social butterfly, but I have had enough party invitations to make the assumption that a noon party generally means a cookout, or something like that. Maybe a patio party, or an outside thing, or at the very least, a potluck. Especially seeing that the shindig was scheduled to last until "whenever", meaning it could span from lunch to dinnnertime to late evening. Knowing that he is a teetotaler, I wasn't surprised to see that he listed the party as a "BYOB" affair, but I was kind of surprised that he said that he would supply sodas and "junk food" otherwise.

I had some reservations about this party from the get-go. Just knowing who was throwing it cast some doubt on its success, but I tried to maintain a positive attitude. In some ways, he has gotten better over the past couple of years. He drives a very sporty little car, he seems interested in "finding a girl", he can carry on a pleasant coversation, he is (of course) brilliant, has admirable morals, earns great money, is responsible, blah blah blah. Unfortunately, all of that is trumped by him being a monumental dork.

I had to admit that his social skills HAD improved a bit over the past couple of years, mostly due to his exposure to my husband and his friends, who have taken the lad and his ilk under their collective wing and attempted to introduce things like sports, social outings, and a one-time trip to a "shoe show" in the hopes of sanding the sharp edges off of their acute dorkdom.

He mentioned that he had invited better than 50 people, and that he anticipated that it would be a "blowout". I had high hopes that it would be a fun afternoon/evening, and despite his invitation, I planned to make something to add to the party table to show my support.

My optimism was smashed to smithereens when we arrived at the apartment. We didn't get there until 6:00 pm (babysitter issues) and the party was, supposedly, in swing for several hours by then. We arrived to a quiet, dark apartment. There were LITERALLY no lights on in the apartment, save the stark flourescent in the kitchen. There were a handful of awkward guests perched on second-hand chairs, no music, no conversation, and oh yeah, no LIGHTS and when we entered the scene with a couple of trays of Buffalo Chicken Dip, the small crowd attacked like a pack of lions on the Sahara.

As the ravenous guests filled their plates with dip, chips and celery, thanking me profusely for showing up and bringing food, I noticed in the darkness that there was one . . . ONE . . glass bowl on a table. It was filled with a strange mixture of children's cold cereal. Fruit Loops, Trix, Honeycomb, and some other crappy stuff. This was the extent of the food at the party.

I shit you not.

Adding insult to injury, there were some off-brand sodas - warm. No ice. No plastic cups.

A couple of my husband's friends were there - one was sleeping in the corner. This was their second stop of the day - the first had been to the Chili Cookoff at Stone Mountain Park, so the beer and chili quotient dulled their perceptions to the point that they really didn't notice the lack of ambiance, or food, or drink, or fun. The other guests were not so lucky. I noticed that 4 or 5 of the guests were a bit older than I was, which baffled me. Turns out that my friend had extended the invitation to several people at his new workplace that evidently had NO IDEA what they were getting into. Bad enough that this fiasco was being visited upon his friends, but his COWORKERS! I just shook my head.

I circled the apartment, opening blinds, switching on lights, and it was then that I noticed that there was a very nice covered patio outside, with room enough for several people, overlooking a nice wooded area. This would have been the perfect place for a tub of ice for the beer and drinks, but as it was, it was dusty and forlorn, probably never even treaded upon since the geeks moved in the place the month before.

Speaking of the geeks that inhabited the place . . . one of them had just left altogether when people started to arrive, and another was hiding in his room, headphones on, not participating in any way, except once when he had to exit his room to go to the bathroom. He paused long enough to enter the livingroom, turn 360 degrees, offering each person there the hairy eyeball, and, grumbling, returning to his room with the slamming of his bedroom door. My friend seemed absolutely oblivious to this and everything else disastrous that was transpiring.

We lasted about 2 hours, then we left for greener pastures. We ended up going to Summits Tavern for burgers, trivia, and long talks about the viability of this guy ever, ever having a normal existence. After gathering up our courage, we swung back over to the party to drop off our friends at their cars and say goodnight to the host. By this time, Roommate #3 (the one that had run away) had shown up on the scene with a guy and 2 girls from his LARP (Live Action Role Play) group. All were dressed up in their little costumes or whatever the hell you call the outfits that grown men and women wear when they are pretending to be elves, fairies, ogres, etc. (Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!) Wordlessly, the four skulked back to his bedroom together, and when the unmistakable sound of ripping velcro echoed through the apartment, we hastily made our exit.


Worst. Party. Ever.




RITA'S DORK PARTY RESCUE
BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP




4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 2 pounds)
1 12 oz. bottle of hot sauce (Frank's or Texas Pete or your favorite)
2 (8 oz.) cubes cream cheese
1 16 oz. bottle of blue cheese OR ranch salad dressing
8 ozs. shredded sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack or a combination

Preheat oven to 350.
Boil chicken in water until cooked through (about 15 minutes). Drain and shred chicken with two forks.
In a 13x9 inch pan, combine shredded chicken with hot sauce, spread to form an even layer.
Combine cream cheese and dressing in a saucepan, heat over medium heat, stirring until cream cheese is smooth and incorporated.
Pour mixture evenly over chicken, spreading to the edges of the pan.
Bake uncovered for 20 minutes.
Sprinkle cheese evenly over the top, bake an additional 10 minutes.

Serve with celery sticks or corn chips.

Per 1/4 cup serving:
Calories: Don't ask
Fat: uhhhh, nevermind

Can't sleep . . .clowns will eat me!

Anyone that knows me knows that I hate clowns. Always have, always will. I don't trust them; their greasepaint hides their sinister underside.

First, there was serial killer clown John Wayne Gacy, who led police to 28 shallow graves under his house that contained young boys that he had lured to his home, tricked into trying his "trick handcuffs", tortured, sodomized and murdered.

Pleasant dreams, kids

Honoring THAT tradition, may I present to you Spanky the Clown.

Now it was no big surprise to me that Spanky the Clown has been arrested on child porn charges. What DOES surprise me is that MORE clowns aren't arrested on child porn charges.


Clowns are evil - especially this one.

They are creepy, all of them.

The ONLY exception to this rule is Krusty the Clown. He is what all clowns should be . . . an aging, jewish, alcoholic, chainsmoking marketing whore. Now THAT I can respect.

Nutcracker

I'm taking the kids to see "The Nutcracker" tonight.

Nope, not "the" Nutcracker. It's not the "Big Show" (i.e. Atlanta ballet production at the Atlanta Fox); it's the more modest Georgia Ballet production at the Cobb County Civic Center Auditorium. It's a nice show, lovely costumes . . . but it's certainly not the Fox.

I feel a little bit guilty that I didn't spring for the big tickets. Guilt and Christmas seem to go hand in hand for me, ever since I had kids. I feel a tremendous pressure to create memories for my kids, and sometimes, that compulsion to spin magical Christmas memories makes my efforts seem trivial to me.

I've been thinking how much nicer it would be to take my kids downtown to the beautiful Fox theater, and see their eyes light up from the magic and splendor. I mean, there's nothing quite so magical as downtown Atlanta at Christmas, at least for me.


My Christmas memories of riding the Pink Pig train to Santa and seeing the lighting of the Great Tree at the downtown Rich's seem so much more grand than anything that I am able to cobble together for my little suburban babies. Is seeing Santa at Town Center just as good? Is going to the Cobb Ballet and swinging by Los Reyes for tacos afterward just as good? Is the artificial tree that I put up as worthy as the fresh cut Frazier furs that we had every year growing up?

I find myself scanning store ads and Ebay, frantically locating the "perfect" gifts for them. I lay awake at night, planning how I will get everything ready by Christmas day. I try to think about how I could make it better. And I worry. Alot.

If I'm lucky, somewhere in the midst of this tinsel-induced frenzy, I stop and remind myself that Christmas probably seemed so magical then because the rest of the year in contrast was generally so shitty. If I am enjoying a moment of clarity, I also remind myself that everything doesn't ride on Christmas like it did when I was growing up, that my kids have other good memories of me, of us, that don't revolve around Christmas cheer.

Those Christmas memories, when I was a kid, when our family came together, when the fighting and craziness seemed to just evaporate and all was well . . . they are all I've got, but it won't be all that they have.

And I am going to enjoy Christmas now, and stop letting Christmas past haunt me.

I vow it.

Black Friday

Well, well, well . . . The best laid Thanksgiving plans changed.

Since I worked both Wednesday and Friday, I had originally decided to order a catered Thanksgiving. Well, back up. Initially, we had all planned to go to my cousin's house for Thanksgiving in Huntsville, AL. Those plans were made before we knew that my mom was sick, way back in the summer. We held onto this faint notion that we could still go, but I finally came to my senses a couple of weeks ago and realized that there was no way that I was going to haul my sick mom and two little kids 3 hours to Huntsville and 3 hours back in the same day. That's when the divine inspiration for the Boston Market catered dinner came in. Seemed genius, and then I realized I didn't even have the energy for that.

Doing my best to conserve my energy to spend with family and not stand in the kitchen, I decided to cancel the Boston Market order and we went out for Thanksgiving lunch instead. I had stumbled onto a really good restaurant that serves all fresh vegetables, buffet-style, and they were open for Thanksgiving. We went, we were dressed casually, they served traditional Thanksgiving with all the trimmings and we enjoyed every bite (even my kids, who don't much like Thanksgiving fare found things that they liked).

My sister, in her wisdom, ordered Thanksgiving dinner from Publix and spent the better part of Wednesday gathering the order and baking pies to take to my mother's apartment. My dad isn't well enough to go out to a resturant, really, and my mom wanted to make sure that my oldest brother had somewhere to have Thanksgiving. My older brother has been acting out again (longtime readers will remember him as Dark Prince in early blog entries), so that precluded any full-family Thanksgiving function.

We stoppped in to see my mom and dad after our lunch, and she looked happy and energetic. Her sister from California had traveled to the East Coast to attend the Huntsville Thanksgiving dinner, but was delayed a day, and ended up having Thanksgiving with my mother. My mother was so thankful to have had a dinner prepared and waiting. My brother joined them, and they all had a nice visit. We were coming in as they were all heading out, so my mother had lots of company, and that seemed to cheer her, which helped me accept the lack of tradition of the day.

I had a discussion with my sister about how depressing the holidays have been the past couple of years. Parents are getting older and sicker, the traditions that we always leaned on have all but disappeared, and we are left with empty holes where tradition used to flourish. Of course, that is how it feels in my head. My children know nothing of the extended family reunion Thanksgivings that filled my childhood. They were gigantic affairs hosted by my aunt in Alabama, and we looked forward to them all year long. Time marches on, things change, my aunt is 71 and living in a tiny senior apartment and it dawned on me that I had to accept the baton and start making some new traditions if I wanted to ever resurrect my holiday spirit.

To this end, I decided to have a Saturday get together. I figured that most of our friends would be around, and through with family commitments. We had a similar get together last year, and with alot of gusto, I approached the preparations. Hubby and the kids, seeing the first spark of holiday spirit in me in days, enthusiastically joined in, sweeping the deck, helping me prepare tables, etc. Actually, it was way more work than I would have performed to actually host Thanksgiving, but I seemingly had NO energy for Thanksgiving preparations, but had lots of energy to get ready for this party. Figure that out.

There was alot to be thankful for, once I thought about it for awhile. The boy, who had been so sick the week before, seemed like his little old self. Hubby and I were feeling more secure than we had in years, my daughter was doing well, and even though my parents were sick, they were well-cared for and safe. I was thinking about all of these things when I got a phone call. My daughter answered it and said "It sounds like somebody that might be coming to the party," as she handed me the receiver. Breathless from cleaning, I answered "Hello?" and a very nice lady immediately began to apologize, saying "It seems as though I might have interrupted a party, I do apologize for the intrusion . . ."

Within the first minute of the conversation, I found out that she was a counselor at my boy's school (he attends PreK at the elementary school). She was calling me to inform me that his teacher would no longer be there.

He has two teachers, so I wasn't sure which one she meant at first. One teacher is about my age and exactly what you would expect a PreK teacher to be: enthusiastic, sweet, funny. The other is an older woman, very quiet, seemingly kind. The counselor was referring to the older of the two.

As she spoke to me, her voice kind of faded as I began to recall what I could about this teacher. I remember thinking when I met her at Open House that she seemed a bit distracted, she looked exhausted, that she wasn't really tuning in when I spoke with her. I remember saying to my husband, "She's kind of out there, isn't she?" and dismissing it shortly afterward. I got a strange vibe from her, as though something wasn't quite right, and I was too tired, too busy to give it much thought. At that time, I remember thinking that I didn't need any more needy people around me.

The important thing was that my son grew to love her, dearly. He was so shy those first few weeks, and carpool and daily transitions were really challenging for him. He tended to hang out along the edges of activity, and this lady took the time to talk to him, engage him, hold his hand when he felt unsure. He has since found his comfort level in class, and hasn't needed that kind of support as much, but the bond was set: he thought the world of her.

Every day, he walked out to carpool to meet Hubby's mom or dad, and every day, he was holding this teacher's hand. Last Friday, I remember that my mother in law mentioned that this teacher took the time to tell her what a good boy my boy was, what a pleasure he was to teach, and how much she enjoyed him. I made a little mental note then to take the time next week to speak to her.

The counselor was couching her words carefully as we spoke. The teacher had passed away a couple of days before Thanksgiving, she wasn't sure about the details, she had some preliminary information, but out of respect for the family, she was not sharing any further details. She would be at school with other teachers on Monday to talk to the class, and she encouraged me to tell my boy over the weekend so he would not be caught off guard.

I hung up, stunned, and wondered how I would break the news to him. My suggestion to the counselor to tell the kids that Mrs. M had retired and gone to the beach was met with a chilly response. I would have much rather told that lie than dumped the reality on my little one, but I really had no choice, since the other kids would surely know the truth.

The party started a couple of hours later, and it was fun, but in the back of my head, this was brewing. I'm not a wine drinker, but I was that night. Start early, start heavy.

Sunday, I took a quiet moment to tell the boy that his teacher had died. He had a puzzled look on his face, and all he said was "Really?" He didn't say anything else. On and off through the day, he asked quiet questions about how she died, and I told him I didn't know, but that if I found out, I would tell him.

To tell the truth, I wondered too. I hate to think that I am morbidly curious, but I just couldn't really imagine what could have happened. Did she have an accident? Stroke? I found her obituary online, and it really held no clues. It did say that she was 50, married, had 2 kids, had been a teacher for 22 years, and a member of the Baptist church. I began to think she might have just passed away in her sleep. I hoped so.

But, since I can never leave well enough alone, I called the room mother, and when she had even less information than I did, I called the next parent on the list, asking if they had any additional information about whether or not the class would send flowers to the family, etc. This family had somehow gotten some additional information from someone in the neighborhood that knew about the situation, and without much fanfare, the husband told me that the teacher had died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

I don't even know if I told him goodbye or not. I stood there, holding the receiver, and let that bounce around my head. The one thing that I kept going back to was the thought that I could have taken the time to speak to her. I could tell that she was struggling when I met her. I didn't know EXACTLY what her situation was, but I damn sure knew that she was a person that needed a little support. It wouldn't have cost me anything to, you know, reach out to her somehow, at least let her know how much she meant to my boy and all the other kids that she had helped for 22 years. But I was too busy, too preoccupied, stretched too thin.

Would it have made any difference? I don't know. Sometimes a little encouragement makes all the difference to someone that feels so defeated.

Giving a note to her family through the online guestbook seemed like too little, too late, but it was all I was left with. It was full of platitudes, like "I am so sorry for your loss" and other hackneyed phrases meant to convey something to the survivors. That note was for them. This one is for her:

Thank you, Mrs. M. You meant the world to my little boy. He doesn't understand what happened, and why he will never see you again, but he has cried over you, in his room when he was alone with the door closed. He never told you that he loved you, but he did. And I never told you thank you for helping him through a painful time. I never stopped long enough to get to know you and offer some friendship. I never took the time to give you a kind word, and for that, I am sorry. You might have taken some comfort in it. I promise to try to encourage people more, to be there for people if I can be. I swear.

Not dead.

Me, that is.

Just thought I would let you know.

Other developments:
New job is going better than I could have hoped for.

Kids had a great Halloween, but the boy got sick, some crazy reaction to antibiotics that landed him in the emergency room. He's getting better, though.

Hubby and I realized that we are experiencing dual permanent employment for the first time in over 10 years. Couldn't be more pleased.

Saw The Grinch last night. Now I feel like Christmas is getting close.

Cancelled pretty much all my best-laid Thanksgiving plans. Pre-ordered dinner from Boston Market, which hubby will bring home on Tuesday evening before Turkey day. Now I can just set a nice table and relax.

Happy Thanksgiving!