Sunday, October 08, 2006

We're Golden

It's over. The 50th Anniversary Party for my parents, that is. It went well. Actually it went very well - going off without a hitch and no major incidents. No drama. No family meltdowns. No surprises. Sure, that doesn't make for a very exciting blog entry, but it's just how it went.

The prep to the house got completed about 15 minutes before people started showing up. The entire place looked pretty frickin' good, if I say so myself. People oooh'd and aaaah'd over the house - by those who had never seen it and those who had seen it prior to the downstairs re-do.

True story. Funny story. On Thursday, Denton went down to the florist to order flowers for the living room, to be delivered on Saturday. The florist, whom apparently was described as an over the top Rip Taylor (eeek.........oh.....and shock!) said he was making a delivering in our neighborhood that day anyway. When he got our address, he said, 'oh, that's where I'm delivering flowers to on Saturday!' I don't know if there is a code of silence/ethics to floral delivery, but if so, he breached it. Turns out Rebecca and Andrew had ordered flowers for the event - which was extremely thoughtful. Even moreso, since I never got a chance to call her to thank her and wish her a happy birthday!!! The flowers were purdy too.

The food was great - at least I heard it was!!! Chef Bob did a bang-up job pulling stuff together. But playing host is hard. As I was running around, getting drinks, or greeting arrivals, It is safe to say I never spent more than seven minutes w/anyone person - and never in a row. I missed the entire cheese and fruit plate. Never got to touch it. I did snag the last two shrimp of the two different platters. The homemade cocktail sauce was incredible. I did get some tenderloin, salmon, orzo salad, and the other pasta dish, but well after most everyone had eaten (I'm not complaining). Everyone was asking for recipes for some of the stuff - so it was well liked. The yellow and red tomatoes in mozzarella and balsamic vinegar were very good. Everyone seemed to enjoy the cake too. My littlest niece was VERY disappointed that she didn't get a flower from the cake. They were real - and not edible.

Our other big outings have been for close friends - and though I do care to make a good party impression on them - they are easy-going and can fend for themselves as needed. Heck, we've been friends for 18 years and up, so there is a certain informality with them. With extended family, former neighbors, and co-workers of parents so on, one must perform. It's exhausting!

Some lessons learned from an event like this to be sure. There was no lack of food, that's for sure. We could have done with about a third less of the main dishes and still had plenty. So much for going by head counts!!! We had about 55 attendees - with about four to five people who came that were not expected and two last minute no-shows (I'm not complaining).

In the future, I'll listen to Denton about the bar. I figured beer, wine, vodka and gin would be all we needed. He insisted on scotch too. I poo-poo'd it. Who drinks that, I thought. Wouldn't you know, as hard liquor goes, more scotch was downed than the rest. Heck - I don't think a drop of gin was poured. So much for my perception.

The take-aways though were my parents, who were very pleased with the event. They had fun and didn't have to do a thing. Starting at 5:00p was good. I think everyone was gone by 9:30 - though the clean-up took us another two hours, but that was ok. I mean we couldn't come down in the morning smelling salmon left-overs, could we??

I'll post some additional pictures later. But it's over and we're tired!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Of course the Scotch went like crazy..it's after Labour Day! Brown liquor season......DUH!
Glad to hear it went well. Your parents look great.