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We had a party today. My daughter graduated from high school yesterday and today we had a party. This was mostly a family party -- lots of her aunts and uncles and cousins -- but Jennifer also had a number of friends here as well. We had lots of food. The party was scheduled to start at two p.m. but I actually had our first guests arrive about twenty minutes early -- it was about a 150 mile drive for them, so it's a bit difficult to judge arrival times any closer than that. We started out with the usual chips and veggies and dips and salsa. Knowing that there would be lots of kids (toddlers and elementary school age) I also had a platter of seedless watermelon slices (and cantaloupe also) and a big bowl of seedless grapes. More substantial stuff? Okay, a couple of big sheet pizzas and also a three feet long sub sandwich. Later in the afternoon I had grilled marinated chicken breast and also marinated chicken on wooden skewers. (Marinated in Salamida's State Fair Spiedie Sauce) Oh yeah, plus potato salad and two kinds of pasta salad. Also rolls, etc. Lots of good food. Nancy baked a cake and lots of different kinds of cookies. (I enjoy feeding people.) We had rented a 20 x 20 canopy tent for the backyard that proved to be just marvelous. It was hot and sunny this afternoon and the canopy provided cool shade. Sean played disk jockey. He brought down from his bedroom the various bits of audio gear he has assembled -- speakers, amps, etc. -- and set up our backyard for sound. It began clouding over a bit past six p.m. so he and I brought his equipment back inside to avoid possible rain. At this point he had to go to work anyway (he had arranged for someone else to cover the first two hours of his shift today). We got some light sprinkles of rain around seven. About 7:30 a thunderstorm hit, bringing a few minutes of heavy rain. By that time most people had left the party. I spent a few minutes sitting on the front porch with Nancy and one of her sisters and her daughter (the niece whose college graduation party we had attended two weekends ago), just talking and watching the rain. They left a bit past eight, leaving just Nancy and me and Jennifer and two of her friends. They went to a festival being held in town where a friend's band was scheduled to play at nine. I took a brief nap, then came down to write this entry while waiting for Sean to call for a ride home from work. Tiger, our cat, who is strictly an indoor cat, managed to flee to the outside world in the middle of the party. We looked in the general area around our house and I took a walk around the block shaking a Pounce container, but no sign of Tiger. He finally showed up around eight o'clock but about twenty minutes later he managed to paw open the sliding screen door to the back deck and escaped again. This time he returned in less than half an hour. Jennifer delivered a stern lecture to him but it didn't seem to faze him any. |
