Dinner Party

It is probably important to record these, since they are the best thing in life. And it is probably important to make fun of my guests, some of whom do and some of whom do not read this blog.

Past guests worth making fun of, first: The doorknob of our bathroom door is loose and although we not infrequently tighten it with our nifty screw-driver skills and have the maintenance man do the same about once a month; still, it traps people. Which is endlessly amusing!

Also, we've had a chair curse at our apartment: the last three fell apart, one by one (there were all from the same set). Then, one night at a dinner party in Lawrence's honor, he evidently had a rickety chair (from a new set). He was leaning back and forth (didn't his mother teach him how to sit on a chair, with all four feet on the ground?) and it absolutely collapsed right underneath him. Needless to say, we all had a good laugh.

In fact, it is arguable that the sole purpose of Little Gidding DP's (dinner party; thankfully not "dance party," although that is, I admit, the proper use of the abbreviation) is to laugh at our guests. Or make them cook for us, if possible. Saturday night was a Slovak cultural evening in which we flew in a real live Slovak to make Halushky (sp.?) to accompany the Demanovka and Slovak music that kept being subsumed into something Middle Eastern and belly-dance-y (thankfully, baklava was also on the menu). The poor jet-lagged Slovak had to retire early, but per normal the party did not wrap up early (Emily: "I hate leaving. It is my least favorite thing in the world." Wendell: "That's why I'm not doing it.").

When we can't make fun of our guests, Myrrh and I make fun of each other (actually, I just make fun of her, but I try to couch it in terms that make it appear that I'm including myself in the joke). Like the time I said, "Hi, how are you?" to our neighbor, eagerly trying to be kind and greet him (highly unusual, I know). And Myrrh responded, "Fine, how are you?" And we kept a straight face until our [highly awkward, crunchy (I know, what other sort of neighbors would we want?)] neighbor made it into the apartment building. At which point our laughter exploded.

And also there's the time that we were at a lecture and Myrrh didn't get a joke that the speaker told until about a minute after he'd finished. And she said, "Oh!" out loud, into the silence of the room. It is times like that that I pretend not to know her, although minutes before I'd been frantically scribbling notes to her in an effort to make her laugh out loud and break the monotony of the speaker (who is, to put it mildly, not one of my favorite people. Lawrence: "Emily, it's your turn to talk to The Tiger [who was supposed to be visiting with us all at a different dinner in a different time]." Emily: "Oh no, that's quite alright.")

Which leads me to a point that Sterns and I were discussing this afternoon (the sliver of the afternoon that I was awake to enjoy): Why would one ever speak to a random person who one will never meet again? Why be friendly? I really can't understand. In the category of random people, I am including bartenders, taxi drivers (although I occasionally really like taxi drivers and have an absolute weakness, as I've mentioned before in this forum, for mechanics--I always speak to mechanics. Mechanics redeem me as a person), people who are chatty on metros, graduate students from other political science subfields, and all people in cities in which you do not live; also people you meet in Europe while backpacking (here Sterns is softer than I am and has been known to yell at me for not being friendly; but I will say, I have in fact spoken before to people that I've met at hostels, although I'd rather not. For instance, if they share a room with you, you absolutely should talk to them. If, however, you pass them in the stairwell, you should not. Once, a man with whom we shared a hostel, accused my sister and I of stealing his vegemite. Have you ever seen or smelled vegemite? Who would ever steal it?)