Today, we attended a tea party as a bridal shower for my friend’s sister. And it was actually really nice. We very much enjoyed the tea party, and it had me want to have more tea parties in my life… which was a surprise for me! Who knew I would want to have tea parties in my life??
Thank you, God, for such a lovely day with family and with friends. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2024
Tonight we had a dinnertime gathering at a neighbor’s house. I was telling my mom about it yesterday, and said that we had “a dinner party thing with some neighbors” and that I was going “to pick up Costco pizza” for it. She laughed, and explained that the ideas ‘dinner party’ and ‘Costco pizza’ don’t exactly go together.
I agreed entirely, and clarified what I’d meant and how my use of “thing” was intentional, as a dinner party is a very different event than having Costco pizza together…
And yet, I still wish we could have Costco pizza for our wedding reception food, despite the conflicting styles and expectations of the two things… 😛
Post-a-day 2023
“What’s happening?” he mouths to me across the room, edges of a smile on his surprised face.
I smile back, slightly incredulous myself. “I don’t know…”
It’s half an hour past the end time of the event, and yet we are all still standing around chatting happily. Our hosts are animated and involved in their conversations with us all. No one has come to kick us all out, either gently or forcefully.
This has never happened before.
Usually, ten to fifteen minutes before the end time, a group of staff are going around kindly saying goodnight and reminding us to turn in our name tags as we leave. Then, by one ‘til, they have come back around to walk us kindly and smiling to the door, gently kicking us out by two minutes past the end time.
Tonight, however, none of that happened. We all are still wearing our name tags, even. I went to the bathroom at a quarter ‘til, so that I wouldn’t stand out as a problem at the end or have to wait on anyone else needing to go before driving the long way home. After I came out, I was looking briefly at some brochures before they got picked up – which definitely would be within the next five minutes or so – and our main host is suddenly opening up some double doors that had been, different from usual, closed tonight. I watch, smiling as he figured out the western door’s latch system. Once he gets it open, he turns right to me and invites me to come into the now-open room… to see his wife’s flower arrangements. 😛 He says he doesn’t know why it was closed the whole time, but he wants us to see the flowers, now that it is opened.
I begin to look around with him and am very much impressed by her arrangements – think beautiful Japanese ikebana, not western flower stems in an upright vase – saying so to him. He then suggests that we need to get the others, and so proceeds to go gather the majority of the remaining guests and bring them into the room.
More than half an hour later, we’re all still there. My small group has had multiple comments from me already about the not-being-kicked-out-yet situation. This is when a friend turns around across the room and mouths his question to me. He and I both know how it usually is. Most of the others are here for the first time, and so really just don’t get it. When he joins me, we both laugh in our amazement.
He thinks at first is it because our hosts have no children, but the previous hosts did. But no, we were still kicked out promptly for other events with these particular hosts.
However, I add, these hosts have always been very sociable and excited at having us all here. They never seem to be wanting to stop the party, and actively engage guests right up to the time those guests are kicked out by the wranglers. Perhaps, because they have no specific schedule or plans for this weekend – one of them told me so at the start of the event – they told the wranglers to hold off this time. Or something of the sort… because no one tried kicking us out. I joke that, perhaps, they are still on daylight saving time, and just don’t realize it is so late as it is – they still have another 25 minutes on a DST schedule!
I finally went to check in with one of the staff folks, who was chatting happily himself in the next room over, and even he had no idea why we all still were there and hadn’t been kicked out. He and I agreed to go ahead and give a gentle nudge to everyone by my making a big-ish deal of saying goodbye to our hosts. I began to do so, but, given how much the hosts love to chat, I then just straight up went and told the Americans that we were supposed to leave now. We have little issue with such a direct and clear communication between ourselves, so long as we aren’t mean about it, of course. Then everyone rallied together to say goodbye to our hosts, and the party actually ended… about seven minutes later.
At four ‘til nine, we all wandered out through the drizzling rain to our vehicles, and headed home after a bizarre and wonderful night… a whole extra hour later than we were supposed to be. 😛
Never done that one before at the Consul-General’s Residence!
Thank you, God, for this lovely evening of camaraderie and surprise. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
Getting things done, but being a night owl doesn’t help improve my sleep schedule when I have things to do. Lots needs to happen … correction: There are lots of things I want to happen before Sunday, for the party (that may or may not happen, depending on the weather). I’m thinking they won’t be done to the desired degree. However, I think I’m okay with that. I just want to have a nice time in celebration of this life I am blessed to live. However, given that certain people likely to attend will not be easy peasy about a house that doesn’t seem to be put together seemingly perfectly, I now find myself aiming to get some bigger things done. Yes, the bedroom will be in no better shape than it is right now, laundry to be done or folded or sorted into where it will be stored for real and all… and there might even be some more in here, too. Plus, we likely still won’t have a functioning sink in our bathroom, which doesn’t make things any easier. However, my man and I both have loads we want to get done that is outside the bedroom and that will be seen.
What all will we get done and how? Dunno. But we shall see.
Post-a-day 2023
Bluebell and Ice Cream (also properly titled, but not necessarily known as “Bluebell and Pizza) for year number eight was a success. My man went with me, and we rushed over after the cool opera showcase – it was very cool, by the way – that ended at 9pm. We arrived around 9:30, but the party was still in swing, so we had some somewhat melty but cold Bluebell ice cream sandwiches and ice cream, talked with people, and let the dog a bunch. As we were leaving, we ended up with the host, checking out all the furniture she had made in her recent woodworking endeavors, and also playing on and checking the tuning of the piano she recently inherited (though doesn’t yet know how to play). My man, of course, spent the piano time roughhousing with the dog, having a grand ole time that contrasted to the previous ‘people time’ of the party itself. I could totally relate.
Anyway, it was a great evening, and I enjoyed that I enjoyed being social like that.
Thank you, God, for such a blessing as ease in such a setting, and especially for the joy of it all and the extra blessing of balance as we got the two-on-two time with the host and her dog afterward. Thank you. Amen.
P.S. I ran into a buddy from high school at the opera thing – had given him some extra tickets we’d had – and another buddy from high school and college who is an awesome musician, though on the spectrum, so is often a tad over the top or odd in social settings. However, the irony was that the former was a touch awkward and the latter was quite comfortable and fun tonight! It was silly, yet good. I was glad to see and be with them both. And it was especially lovely to have the extra-long hug the musician gave me – he always hugs me when he sees me, though he doesn’t seem to touch most people. He still talked to me while facing a slightly other direction, as though looking for someone ‘somewhere over there’, and he talked in the same upper class British cadence without the accent, as he always does, but it was surprisingly comforting to be in such an unchanged and familiar situation that brought up so many positive memories and feelings. And he told me how I can now watch the opera that he wrote and had performed! Looking forward to watching it on a television soon!
Post-a-day 2022
You know, I had something that I felt was really good to share today… yet, I am so tired, at this point, I have no idea what it was.
And it was only a couple hours ago (if that) that I was thinking about it.
Man…
To be fair, it has been a long day. I woke up to use the bathroom just after 5:20 this morning (not seven hours of sleep), and did not go back to sleep. I went for a run and showered and made a smoothie, and I did loads of other stuff, too, all before 7:30, at which point I drove my mom and myself an hour and a half East to my aunt and uncle’s house for a known photo shoot and a surprise tea baby shower (complete with social distancing and a garage turned completely into an old style tea house, working chandelier included). (It really was an awesome event, and an even more awesome surprise for the mom-to-me.) I did photos in a field and from some tall grasses, then drove my cousin and myself to pick up our grandma for our tea time (which was all the two knew about, but which was only the beginning of a whole surprise event). Then I did photos and helped with serving for the party all day (it certainly takes a lot longer to do a party one family at a time, but those 15-25-minute visits are wonderful in their intimacy), and struggled to stay awake on the drive home (I wasn’t the one driving)… at 7pm. Now, as usual, I have taken ages to get ready for bed, and I am finally about to do it… at 11pm… only about 18 hours after I got up this morning…
Wowzer.
P.S. I remembered the thing, but I was already writing this. I’ll use it for tomorrow now.
Post-a-day 2020
We had a lovely retirement party for my uncle this evening… 35 years working for the same company, doing, essentially, the same work, day after day… completed.
Of course, we are not exactly permitted to be together for a party, so we did a Zoom video conference party – which, actually, allowed even more people to come than would have been able to make it even if we had been allowed to have the party in person, and saved All of us loads of time in driving, and even allowed for last-minute (literally) guests to join the party – and made it a total surprise for my uncle.
I ended up organizing the call, since I was the most apt to figure such computer-y things out, as well to manage a group of people and make things happen the way we want them to happen, and so I arranged with everyone (via a liaison I enlisted – aka my cousin who was originally put in charge of organizing things, but who quickly handed them to me, when we discovered his lack of and my having experience in such a thing) when to meet and how, explained the goal of the quick conference and how it would run, offered up and accepted my mother’s ridiculous idea of our all singing, “For he’s a jolly good fellow”, after the initial surprise – yes, we had discussed how we would be all out of synch, but that that merely would add to the enjoyment of my aunt and uncle, who would be the recipients of our group singing – and informed my aunt that we were all ready.
The surprise was lovely, the singing hilarious; the photo I was asked to share was a hit; the ‘quick five, max ten minutes’ for the call turned into 45 minutes; as arranged, my aunt went through and had each of us say something individually, and lots of tears happened, even from those who avoid tears, especially for such occasions as this public one; and we all had a lovely time from all across the country, and even down to El Salvador.
Also, fun fact: the grandparents (my grand, that is) couldn’t quite get the technology to work for video conferencing, due to their having older phones, and so they each were Skyped or telephoned in and held up to the computer screens of others, so that they, too could be part of the celebration, despite their lack of technology or technological skills. 😛
It was adorable.
In short, it was a spectacular 21st century retirement party, in more ways than one.
Our family is no stranger to long-distance and cross-country calling and video calling (and jut working with what we’ve got and making it work wonderfully) – we have had our fair share of people living here or there around the country and world – but this was the first entirely digital event we have had…
And it was actually really quite cool.
Technology is quite spectacular, when we allow it to do its best and we use it well.
I express tonight extreme gratitude to all those who have played a role in the development in technology connected to what our family used today – thank you, all.
Post-a-day 2020
(I’ve decided to share about Class 101: the laughing out loud class, instead of 100, so that’ll come next week.)
I went to the workout this morning, and it was rather uneventful but that my friend and I finished second in the workout, and there were a lot of people there today… we just found a beautiful way to get through the push-ups, and it worked perfectly – when other people seemed to take forever on the push-ups, we slammed through them quite quickly.
After the workout, I practiced and improved my double-under jump roping, and was glad for it.
I then went home and made a spice cake from the grain-free/flour-free zucchini brownie recipe I’ve been using, but this time used cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger instead of cocoa powder… and it was delicious.
I discovered that I have no interest in going to Minute Maid Park, due to their security requirements that prevent me from having any form of protection, as well as a reusable water bottle (even empty)…, and so I did not go to the Astros game to which I had been just invited.
I did go to a house party – not the jammin’, drug kind, but the friends hanging out together kind – instead, and it was wonderful.
However, on the way to the party, on my way to stop at the new grocer to pick up plates that were requested for the party, I found myself at a stoplight next to car crammed with young guys (adults, but still younger than I am) who clearly had just played a soccer game together – the matching jerseys and sweaty hair kind of gave that one away.
As I turned and saw the front seat guys looking my way, the back window rolled down, and three faces looked out at me, smiling.
“I like you’re scooter.”
Ha…, “Thanks.”
“Does it go fast?”
I shrug, knowing fully that their borderline joking comment is about to choke them, “I’ve gone eighty on it,” I say, quite casually.
Their eyes pop open wider than one could have imagined, and their mouths opened wide, ready to catch some flies…
“Eighty?!”
“Mmhmm… It’s a big scooter, 300ccs,” I add quickly, smiling, before driving off, for the light has turned to green.
At the next stoplight, the car pulls next to me again, the back window still down, the boys smiling bigger than ever.
“Long time no see,” they laugh together.
I laugh and smile broadly.
“Do y’all know where the HEB is?” I ask, having just been wanting to be able to ask someone (which was why I had even looked over to their car in the first place).
“Yeah! It’s on this street,” one says, pointing forward and to the right side a bit, confirming my thoughts.
“Okay, thanks!”
“Are you going grocery shopping?”
“Can you put your groceries on there?”
“Are you going to carry groceries on that?”
“Do you need help?”
The sudden rapid fire of their near-simultaneous questions knocks me back a tad, and makes me smile and chuckle even more than I already had been doing.
“Yes, I can carry groceries, yes, I’m going to the store now,” – “Really?” – “and no, I don’t need help.”
I then drive off again at the newly green light, and see them take off not far behind me.
As I slow and pull into the HEB parking lot, I both see and hear them passing me one final time, saying a few more positive comments that make me laugh (though I do not at present remember what exactly they were – I was focused on the turn and figuring out the parking lot and watching out for stupid people in cars in the lot, but I remember that they were pleasant comments of well-wishing).
I enter the garage fully chuckling fro the hearty spot on my belly, lips super wide on their glorious, teeth-filled grin position – I just had my first fanboys, I think to myself, and smile all over again.
Post-a-day 2019
***Update on the ant bite: My bicep still rocks, but the bite swelled and split open this morning, only to close up, turn green in the middle again, and start swelling again… we’ll see how it looks in the morning, now! (And the coach’s bites did not turn green, he said, but one was hurting a lot.)***
We now return to regular programming.
There is a guy working with me who graduated high school with my youngest brother.
I pulled out the yearbook from their senior year today, and had a brief look through the senior photos.
I enjoyed how much hair this guy and my brother both had in their photos, and how they both have almost none now, and both keep their heads shaved (though my brother uses a razor, and the other guy only seems to buzz it as short as possible).
One thing I noted was that their service work locations seemed almost stereotypical for each of them…. interesting, perhaps.
Something bigger, however, was the other people I found in the yearbook.
I crossed names of people whose faces I knew not, but whose names I knew well from my brother – how fun to put faces to the names, even almost two decades after the fact.
And then I realized that I finally had the opportunity to look up and remember my brother’s best friend’s full name – I forgot his middle name a few years back, and haven’t recalled it since…. I just always thought it was fascinating, because he was the fourth with the name, so he had a “, IV” at the end of his legal name.
And I use the past tense here, because he died at the start of their sophomore year of college.
It was drinking and a bit of drugs at a party, and everyone thought he’d simply fallen asleep, but, of course, he hadn’t… I’ve always remembered most that my brother was invited to that same party, but chose to work on his absurd amount of homework, instead (thank you, UT Architecture program [not for the first time]).
And so J—– died at the party, and my brother spoke at the funeral, at the request of J—-‘s family, and he did a wonderful job.
My mom and I also attended the funeral, along with a lot of people.
After the funeral, since J—- had always said that he wanted to go out with pinwheels and fireworks, we (a handful of select people that happened to include my mom and me) went to an open land area across from a movie theatre, and set off a bunch of little rockets and a few big shebang fireworks (the pinwheels had decorated the casket) – it was a true party and celebration to send off J—- and to say goodbye together.
When I came across his name today, I was delighted – I finally have it(!).
And then I gave his photo a good look.
And it was almost terrifying as an experience, though terrifying just is not quite the right word…
It suddenly occurred to me that this was the first time I’d seen a photo of J— since around the time of the funeral – I’d only had mental visions of him since then.
It was weird to think that, u like my brother and that other guy, J— had not aged from this photo… maybe two years’ worth of aging, but that was little different from the boy who sat in the frame that is in front of me now.
These were posed senior portraits for the yearbook, and so they each are looking directly at the camera…, directly at the viewer of the photograph… J—- was no exception…
And it was spooky, knowing that those eyes, so true and almost penetrating in this photo, were no longer here, no longer existed.
And then, it had me wonder how many people in this book, this yearbook are no longer around?
And that was perhaps even spookier…
I had to move on to other things then, both in terms of productivity and in terms of an emotional desire to step away from the increasing discomfort and potential sadness of what sat before me, visually and mentally, at that moment, and so I closed the book, put it back in its place, and walked away.
I soon had tears in my eyes, and the feeling of hollowness just behind the bottom of my ribs was growing.
Now, hours later and many tasks and conversations later, I feel less afraid, and more aware of the fleeting aspect of life, the circumstances that allow us a promise of a chance at everything, and at a chance of it all going away at any moment, in a moment’s time…
On my way up to the house where I am housesitting tonight, I passed their church, where J—-‘s funeral had been… I think of him every time I pass it (though that doesn’t happen too often), because it’s the only thing I’ve ever attended there…
……
I don’t have anything insightful about this… I just wanted to share…
Post-a-day 2019
Some days, I think I’ve just got to go ahead and pity myself… not so much as a big deal or anything, saying how sad this and what a poor, poor dear I am…, but as a short and sweet, compact little pity party.
We talk about how part of facing our fears is being able first to name them… and I think my little spells of depression can relate much to that idea.
I always acknowledge that I feel I am sucking at life…, but I don’t ever really list it out, say it all out loud.
Tonight, I kind of did in a phone call to my mom… sure, she had some not-so-uplifting, but true things to say, and that didn’t help much in the moment, but it was a good reminder for now.
However, by stating all these things where I felt like I was totally sucking at life, it was like putting a name and face to my current sources of this panicky depressive state from this past week and weekend.
‘This sucks and this sucks, and I feel this way because of this, which totally sucks…., and I feel like a total crap woman because of this, and a total failure in this part of my life, because of this…, etc.’
And I cried a little as I said them, though not lots.
And, now, I feel significant improvement… almost good.
I think I was resisting feeling miserable, because I was ashamed of the circumstances in the first place, and disappointed in my being upset in the second…. and by declaring each upset, without getting all dramatic and angry or anything, by just stating what each piece was, I was able to being letting it all go, letting it all let go of me…
I didn’t tell everything to my mom, so not everything is freed, but everything I told her is mostly totally over for me now.
(There’s one final piece to my weekend stress, and I’m not quite ready to let it go, so I’ll reevaluate it in the morning, if I even still remember it, and I suspect things will go very well after that point.)
So, it seems to me* that this little miniature version of a pity party, in which I say out loud all of the sucky things going on for me in life at the moment, is actually a practical and beneficial means of letting it all go and moving forward with empowerment.
Who’da thunk that a pity party ever would be the answer to truly good things in life? 😛
Maybe that’s why we started them in the first place… we just tend to have a little (read ‘a lot of’) trouble with keeping our words simple and not intensely and immensely dramatic…
Post-a-day 2019
*Dagny would be furious, I know! 😛
hannah ananas 