Be afraid I am having a dinner party

I am hosting a dinner party tonight. Let me repeat, I am hosting a dinner party tonight. I can't cook, my house is a mess, and I entertain rarely. Is disaster imminent? I hope not.

Why am I hosting a dinner party given that being a host is not one of my strengths? The answer is quite simple. As a member of a church, I belong to a group that do supper once a month. The group divides up and six people have dinner on a weekend at someone's house. I have been to a couple of these parties. People have opened their houses to me. People have fed me. Now it is my turn.

I am okay with that and gladly accept my social responsibility. But noble intentions are the paving stones of the road to perdition and that would give even the most pompous fool a moment's pause. What I am having trouble accepting is how unsuited I am to do this particular task. I live alone and I enjoy living alone. When I bought my house, I thought it was an excellent idea, better than living in an apartment because in this case, the landlord is a jerk who doesn't fix anything and the tenant is a slob, who is well on his way to starring in the reality show Hoarders. Since I am both tenant and landlord I get along fine with me.

But tonight I'll open my house to a group of people who have no idea regarding the disorder of my private life. I am a terrible cook, which means I am an okay bachelor cook. Most of the things I eat are fresh fruits, vegetables, the all-to-frequent microwaved baked potato or chicken pot pie, and chicken or fish that is broiled or seared until they reach leathery toughness. Does that mean I am a terrible cook. No! I can say for a fact that no one has ever lived to complain about my cooking. Conceptually a dinner cooked by me is like an airline flight. Every one of my meals that you walk away from is a "good" meal.

But my guest have nothing to fear. They are bringing the salad, dessert, and garlic bread. I am serving lasagne. Once, long ago in the past, when I was married I may have actually learned how to make lasagna. But now that I am divorced, what simple cooking skills I once possessed have gone the way of other lost skills, such as being able to answer the question about fat women in bathing suits or proper foot massage technique. So the meat lasagna is being purchased from Caesar's Italian Delicatessen in Bakersfield. The meatless lasagna is coming from the frozen food case of Albertson's. So as long as everything is heated thoroughly everything will be fine.

But being a bachelor means that I didn't have enough plates and bowls for my guests. When I got divorced, the ex got the house, the car and all the kitchen stuff. So I went to Wal-mart and bought a 4-piece place setting to go with the plastic lawn chair and folding card table that constituted most of the furniture of my apartment. Not wanting my guest to eat off paper plates, I decided to go to Target and buy dinner ware for eight people. That also included place matts and napkins. I've stayed true to myself in the sense that nothing matches, but at least there's enough to ensure that all my guests have something to eat off of. What was really great was that it reminded of the joys of shopping in preparation of a divorce. But it was better there were no lawyers or ex spouses to deal with.

All that remains to do is pick up and clean the house prior to guests arriving. But that is an Augean labor that would give Heracles a moment's pause. It will require me pickup all the crap, mostly paper, and shove it into plastic bags and hide in a spare bedroom until they can be sorted, shredded, recycled or saved. Don't hold your breath. The carpet will have to covered with somekind of smelly cleaning stuff and vacuumed the kitchen and bathroom floors mopped. I should also replace the cracked toilet seat in my main bathroom, but I don't think that is going to happen.

But it's worth it, I guess. Every person needs to be part of a community. All I can hope is that when I open my house, my guests will notice that I am opening my heart as well. If that is the case they hopefully they will ignore the chaos of my solitary life, have an evening of good food and fellowship, and walk away from the dinner. Well that pretty much sums it up. Walk away from the dinner without worrying about being poisoned.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Be afraid I am having a dinner party copyright March 19th 2011 by Jamie Jacks.

Photo credit National Cancer Institute Len Rizzi Photographer retrieved 3/19/2011 from http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/details.cfm?imageid=2547

Random Thoughts March 15, 2011

Rep. Michele Bachmann's gaffe hear 'round the world

There's been a lot of chortling regarding Minnesota Congresswoman (Tea-Liban 6th District) Michele Bachmann's recent gaffe about Revolutionary War geography while in New Hampshire. Representative Bachmann told an adoring crowd,

"Before headlining a GOP fundraiser, the possible presidential hopeful told a group of students and conservative activists in Manchester, 'You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.'" according to the Huffington Post. Which was an unfortunate mistake to make if she has presidential delusions.

I wanted to say something biting like the deranged Roman Emperor Gaius Caligula once appointed a racehorse to the Roman Senate and the people of Minnesota's 6th Congressional District have elected Michele Bachmann to Congress. (notice how I snuck it in here).

But before I did that I read Rep. Bachmann's biography in Wikipedia. She has a law degrees from Oral Roberts University and William and Mary. She was a tax lawyer for the IRS. She's intelligent.

Which means I have a hard time explaining many of her bizarre policy positions and statements. The Economist once called George W. Bush, "intellectually incurious." I wonder if Rep. Bachmann has this defect as well. She has found an ideological niche and is now comfortably ensconced in it. Many of her political beliefs and positions all no room for compromise. It seems that her political success depends in part on not compromising.

When my back was to the wall, comedically speaking

Saturday night, I did my first comedy monologue. It was for a pledge drive dinner for the Unitarian/Universalist Fellowship of Kern County. The last time I tried to do stand up comedy was over 30 years ago.

It was not an auspicious debut. It was an open mic night a bar called The Levee at 43rd and Main. I got up on stage and tried to do something crazy, like kicking a chair and acting strange. I didn't last long. As my friend Stepbuddy Anderson later wrote, "I had a chance and blew it."

This time was better and different. I actually wrote out my jokes beforehand. What was surprising was how easy I thought that was. After I finished creating my monologue, I was suspicious about how easy it was. But in way it was easy. I am a storyteller, I tell stories. I also know that if I make jokes about myself, I have an endless supply of funny stories and my jokes won't hurt anybody.

It went okay. But I was nervous and rushed my delivery. Which means I need to practice and I need to start creating an archive of funny stuff.

Phrases I liked today

One of the things that has just been archived, is the phrase"counterfactual deficits." Sorta know what it means,

Found a definition for counterfactuals, "Counterfactuals are mental representations of alternatives to past events. Recent research has shown them to be important for other cognitive processes, such as planning, causal reasoning, problem solving, and decision making—all processes independently linked to the frontal lobes. "


Sounds like something I should suffer from. Also came accross the phrase, "sarcasm perception." Psychologist are doing research on counterfactual deficits and sarcasm perception. I don't intend to read any of that research but I do like the phrases.


Capitano Tedeschi

30

Random Thoughts March 15, 2011 copyright March 15, 2011 by Jamie Jacks.
Michele Bachmann official photo, (government document in the public domain) source:

http://bachmann.house.gov/Biography/OfficialPhoto.htm