Our First Dinner Party

How many things can go wrong at a dinner party and everyone still have a good time? While I don’t think we really tested the limit, our dinner last evening was a comedy of errors that moved us to laughter on more than one occasion. I guess it is good that we as a couple don’t hold out for perfection but instead prefer the casual easy going deal with the situation at hand with a smile attitude or we might have been in trouble. We decided to have our neighbors over last night for dinner and although we didn’t have a set plan in place we had huge quantities of food that we could prepare so we began formulating ideas late morning.

My daughter’s friend who always accompanies us to the mountains decided to make dessert and she looked up a recipe on the internet finally deciding on homemade chocolate pudding that we would serve with some cut up fruit. It sounds good doesn’t it? Well as luck would have it my girlfriend attempted to place the finished product in the refrigerator which went fine until she opened the door a couple of hours later and realized the bowl was not properly balanced. It fell crashing to the floor, splattering brown frothy pudding in every crevice imaginable throughout the shelves, doors, and bottles. I mean everywhere.

I just happened to be coming upstairs and was greeted with the words, “We should really think about moving some of the bear from the shelves. We don’t have enough room in here” It took me a minute to take in the scene but as I saw a small brown substance slowly dripping from my girlfriend’s hair and the splotches of brown liquid comingling with the freckles across her face I realized what had happened. I tried not to laugh unsure of the mood or reactions but instead consoled her saying that it would be fine and we could just eat the cut up fruit. Admittedly as I walked back downstairs to the grill I had to chuckle as the scene was comical and little did I know would continue throughout the night.

With the ribs sizzling over the open fire and the corn on the cob warming on the second shelve people began to arrive and as is normal began critiquing my grilling process. Isn’t it funny how everyone can grill better than everyone else? Our world is filled with millions of men who are the master of their grills and nobody else can possibly compare. It is fun to banter back and forth about right wrong or indifferent. It is all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. As I started rearranging the food I rolled up all the corn into some aluminum foil and discovered for possibly the 1000th time that food is hot when placed over an open fire. As I pulled back my hand most of the corn rolled down from the grill to the deck below where my black lab pleasing accepted it licking and biting each piece as it bounced past her.

I have never seen a dog eat an entire cob whole before but I guess we will see how the next couple of days go. She swallowed one quicker than I could grab it from her salivating mouth never stopping to breathe. God that dog can eat anything. So now with dessert gone and the corn having become a causality we decided we had better start eating quickly before we lost anything else and that is when the explosion came from the kitchen. I am not really sure what happened since I was down chasing corn cobs across the deck but suffice it to say we now had baked beans all over the stove and kitchen area. My girlfriend’s hair was becoming a representation of our dinner menu. If she figured out how to rub barbecue sauce in there we would have a complete meal.

The good news is we had plenty to eat, the night was beautiful and everyone took the activities with a smile. The goal of any gathering should be having fun and we accomplished that in spades. If you can’t laugh at your own fiascos then what can you laugh at. I am sure today we will be cleaning baked beans out of the cabinets and chocolate pudding out of god knows what but well that is what you have kids for. If I had it to do over again I wouldn’t change a single thing. It might not have been the best organized gathering but it ranked as one of the funniest nights I have had in a long time.

I can’t wait to do it again.

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