breakinglight11 | Entries tagged with party

So I finished the first draft of Mrs. Hudson Investigates last night. It's... not there yet. I tend to defer to just banging some shit out the first time around, and then coming back to fix it up and improve it later. The last scene is particularly bad, but I really wanted to get to that point of being technically "finished." I'll stay away from it for a day or two, to get some distance, and then dig into editing once I've forgotten what I wrote a little.

Intercon is not this weekend but the next. I have not done basically anything to prepare for it, but I always have a good time there and don't want to drop the ball. I have to do a little printing and a lot of prop gathering to run Silver Lines, the small-scale semi-open-world larp set in the Mrs. Hawking universe I've been running a lot lately. I also need to read the character sheet for the one game I'm playing, and put together a costume. That shouldn't be too hard, seeing as if there's anything I have access to, it's plenty of costuming options. But I got to take the minutes to do it.

I also got my first round of essays for class this semester. I like to give them about a week's turnaround time on returning them for a grade, and I hate grading so much that I do better when I grade a small number every day than when I try to do a lot at once. The week's already filling up, but I can't let it slide. Sigh. Teaching is so much more fun when I get to show up and shoot my mouth off, rather than reading boring essays and laboriously explain actionable feedback for the students to edit. It's honestly the only thing I don't like about teaching college.

And I've got a party to plan for. The Hawking cast party is this weekend, and I like to make it fun for all the people who have put so much work into the show. I'm looking forward to seeing the gang again after a few weeks going by since the performance. I look cooking and hosting, but it's more work and planning on top of everything else.

I am going to be a busy bee this week.

Ever notice how every Mrs. Hawking show has a scene at a ball? Well, here’s your invitation to the party— and we hope you’ll dress the part!

This November, the team behind the Mrs. Hawking play series is putting on a showcase gala to whet your appetite for our upcoming productions!

Mrs. Hawking Part 2: Vivat Regina and Part 3: Base Instruments will be performed as part of the Arisia 2017 convention in downtown Boston this January. Before we go up, we’d like to invite you to this free promotional event to eat, dance, and get a behind-the-scenes look at how these stories come together. We’ll even show you a few scenes from the performances to give you an early glimpse at our shows.

There will be fall foods served buffet style. All guests will be given a ticket for a free raffle of door prizes, including a weekend membership to Arisia 2017. We welcome you to come in steampunk costume, and have your picture taken by a photographer to be posted to our Facebook page. Entrance is FREE, but donations toward the show are gladly accepted.

So put on your finest evening attire and join us at this free event to promote and celebrate our Mrs. Hawking productions, Part 2: Vivat Regina and Part 3: Base Instruments, at Arisia 2017!

THE BALLROOM SCENE:
Saturday, November 5th
8pm-11pm at the Democracy Center at 45 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA

Featuring:
- Food and beverages
- Music
- Door prizes in a free raffle
- Displays of the specially designed properties from the shows
- Sneak peeks into behind the scenes info
- Scenes from our Arisia 2017 shows

More info to come, but mark your calendars now and RSVP on the Facebook event!

Vivat Regina and Base Instruments by Phoebe Roberts will be performed January 13th-15th at the Boston Westin Waterfront Hotel as part of Arisia 2017.

As you may know, I love to entertain. I've been starting to have people over for dinner again lately as a way to get myself back into being social again, because it's a way I get lots of enjoyment from. It's a combination of feeling good about myself when I show others a good time, and because cooking is not only a creative activity I enjoy, but a way to feel like I have some accomplishment and control-- hey, I can feed myself like a grownup! I won't starve to death! And it's a nice thing I can do for the people I care for.

Unfortunately I'm limited by my resources in how many I can host in what fashion. A dinner party of mine can never have more than a handful of people max, due to my budget and how little sit-down space I currently have, and even a big bash has to have a hard cap on the guest list. One of the advantages of my old place Elsinore, even with as many problems as it had, was that at least I could invite a ton of people if I wanted to throw a party. Here in Illyria there's always the risk of packing people in like sardines.

But if I had the money and the space, I know exactly what I'd do. I would have four major parties a year. Well, I'd probably have other parties too, but the BIG, IMPORTANT parties would occur four times a year, in spring, summer, fall, and winter. And they would be, as they say, THE EVENTS OF THE SEASON. I would have a fabulous seasonal buffet, different for each one. I do a pretty good job with the spread given the constraints I'm under, if I may say so myself, but imagine what I could do with a real budget! There would be different themes for how guests should dress-- casual, fancy, costumed, whatever appealed to me at the moment. I would also love to have the space for a dance floor, something I've never been able to have at a party before. And best of all, I would have the space to invite as many people as I wanted. It would be necessary, after all. People would plan their attendance for months in advance. Because anybody's who anybody would be at these parties, so it would painful to miss. ;-)

Awesome 4th of July party this past weekend. The food was delicious, the company was great, and I very much appreciated the chance to swim in the nearby lake. My bikini doesn't get nearly enough time to come out and play; once a year is really not enough. It was one of the best social events I've attended in quite some time. Congrats to

captainecchi and

electric_d_monk for putting it on, they really knocked it out of the park.

The only problem is now I have water in my left ear that won't seem to come out. I have tried every home remedy that friends and the Internet can suggest, and nothing has helped. The pressure's a bit painful, and I can't hear so well on that side. I think it may have reduced slightly since Saturday, but it's still bugging me. This has never happened to me before and I'm quite vexed. The most annoying thing is that it's most comfortable when I lie on my back and the water shifts to the back of my head; when I'm upright it pools downward and is painful. I was extremely prone to ear infections when I was a kid, and I've read that the risk increases the longer the water stays in there, so I may end up seeing a doctor about it just so I don't have to put up with it anymore. Not the momento I was hoping to bring home with me from attending a fabulous party.

Avengers, assemble... in Phoebe's bedroom

Had my Halloween celebration this past Saturday. Here are our Avengers assembled, with me as Black Widow, Jane as Loki, Bernie as Captain America, Mac as Bruce Banner, Jared as Iron Man, Mike as Nick Fury, and Matt as Hawkeye. This is the first year I participated in the group costume, so I was drafted into being Black Widow to fill out the group. Black Widow was easier and I didn't feel like doing a Wasp costume, though it would have been fun to have an Antman action figure in my pocket that I could periodically pull out and go "Say hello, Hank." I confessed I kind of half-assed it, using my black leotard, leggings, tall boots, and the cell phone holster Rachel gave me. As usual, by the time Halloween rolls around I'm too burnt out from everything else to make the costume a priority. Still, I managed to spray my hair with red temporary color, thanks to some help from Steph. It flaked off on everything and stained the skin on my back, but it sort of made me look more like Natasha Romanov.

( The evening was lovely, so I'll just include some more fun costume pics. )

Now I would like to take a moment to complain about something that has been an issue on several occasions lately. If I am kind enough to extend an invitation to you, particularly to something I have devoted time, effort, and expense to planning, please do me the courtesy of RSVPing. It really isn't difficult, in this age of instant communication in which we live, to send me a quick e-mail or a post on my LJ or Facebook wall or even so little as clicking the damn button on the Anyvite invitation. I will gladly accept a verbal response as well; maybe you forget to write me but if you take the time to have the conversation with me, that's cool. Even if you respond with a "maybe," no problem, 'cause at least it gives me some idea of whether or not you will be attending so I can plan. My events are never open-house mobs where the only refreshment is as much beer as somebody cared to drag along with them; I host carefully planned parties, often with complete dinner spreads, that are designed for the number and nature of the guests I will be having. My space and means are not unlimited, so I can only have so many people. If I have ten spots at my table or room for only thirty in the house, a spot for you is a spot that unfortunately excludes someone else. It is important to me to make sure I have enough for everyone, but it's also preferable that if I only have to spend X per head instead of X+Y, I can do that without worry. If you show, then maybe I don't have enough. If you don't show, then maybe I spent more than I had to trying to make sure you were accomodated. Neither is really fair to me, who is just trying to show you a good time and was denied a basic courtesy.

So, in conclusion, I am hereby considering all invitations to which I do not receive an RSVP as a no and not plan to accomodate them. And then they will no longer have the option of showing up. It's not that I'm uninviting them. If they let me know they're a yes far enough beforehand-- as in, not the day of --they are of course welcome. But it would be the height of poor manners to arrive at a party they did not tell their host they are coming to. I will then give their place away to someone else who actually demonstrates that they want it.

Therefore-- no RSVP, no party for you.

Yowza. After that weekend, I am burnt. I literally did not stop doing things from my 8AM wakeup each day to my 2AM bedtime each day. So, non-stop activity and a fair bit less sleep than usual. It was great fun and I am incredibly glad I took part in everything I did, but I am as blown from these last two days as I have been from entire weeks in recent time. I am having a hell of a time focusing at work today, but fortunately the dumb little mistakes I keep making have not really hurt anything, and I have caught and fixed them as they occurred. Still, I really want to just go crash somewhere and bum around for the rest of the evening. My busy state came in part from helping beloved friends formerly of the Citadel move to their new place in Watertown, as well as a lovely jaunt to the International Steampunk City, but most of it was due to planning and preparing for my long-awaited fancy party.

The fancy party went, as I hoped it would, wonderfully. The food was fabulous, with much thanks to lovely helpers Gigi,

laurion, Michael, and

blendedchaitea, who heroically stuck it out with me the whole six-hour prep period. The outfits were lovely, all sharp suits and elegant dresses, and I made good on my threat to change outfits every hour. Everyone looked fantastic, but costuming highlights of evening come from the fact I have amazing friends who aren't afraid to shake things up-- no fewer than two couples, both the wonderful

captainecchi and

electric_d_monk and the fabulous

thefarowl and Plesser, came with the lovely lady in the sharp suit and the dashing gentleman in the elegant dress! It was so fun and funny and it amused me to no end. Also,

lightgamer and twilighttremolo initially showed up in pajamas to get me back for the one time they came massively overdressed for a regular old dinner party of mine because of a joke I'd made about "proper attire"-- well played, dear ones, well played!

I love throwing these things. I love playing hostess and showing my friends a good time. I wish I had room to invite every awesome person I know and the budget to feed them all! Unfortunately this may be my last large party for a while, as my new house Illyria will not have the same volume of entertaining space. Well... we'll see. Dinner parties will definitely continue-- in fact I'm seriously thinking of hosting one a week with a rotating guest list --and I still may be able to throw parties on a slightly smaller scale, though probably with a strict attendance cap. But I do so love entertaining, and really need to keep on with it due to the joy it gives me.

This weekend is going to be packed for me.

I was tempted to have someone over to hang out with me Friday night, as Jared will be at the Four-Color Supers game for the evening, but as much as I would like that, on further reflection I think I need to spend that time cleaning. I want the house to be spotless for Saturday, and right now it is a certifiable wreck. I am going to do the whole place top to bottom, even other people's dishes if I have to, because I am going to need that whole kitchen to be ready to go on Saturday, when the cooking starts.

I am now trying to marshal my kitchen help, as I am certain I will need a staff for everything I'm planning. In the morning there will be an epic shopping trip, and then I will lay out all the ingredients and tools I will need so when my slaves-- I mean, helpers --arrive, we can just dive right in. Though I've written up the shopping list, I still haven't put together my plan of attack for how the cooking's going to get done. I want to have a plan on how to proceed, as there's a lot to do and I want to finish early to give myself time to clean up the cookware, wash up, and get dressed after all that work. One thing I'm anticipating is needing a lot of fridge space to store my finished canapes until it's showtime, which may prove difficult given how packed the fridge is. I will have to ask the roommates if there's anything in there that can be moved out, at least until the next day. I am confident that if I go into this with a battle plan in mind, it will all fall out the way I want it to. I shall be the general, and party planning shall be my war.

Sunday I am double-booked, but determined to make it work. I have agreed to help

lightgamer,

morethings5, and

ninja_report move from their current place in Waltham to a new place in Watertown. As I am a Waltham local, it looks like I will be on the loading end, carrying out the boxes so that they may be transported and unloaded by the remote team. Sounds very much like a covert military operation when I put it like that. But Jared and I also have day passes to the International Steampunk City, so I am hoping that either before or after helping with the move, we will go over to that and see what's going on there.

I am already unable to stop myself from figuring out what I will be wearing for my proposed fancy dress party. I have more formal dresses than I realized, none of which come out to play nearly enough, which is one of the reasons I want to throw the party in the first place. But which to choose? The flame-orange Andromeda dress Frances wore to such fabulous effect in To Think of Nothing, with its old-fashioned glamor and striking color? The sparkly black party dress with the visually interesting rouched front that flatters my bust and but perhaps makes me look a bit wide? The simple black one-shouldered cocktail dress with the sleek line and the asymmetric hem? The short cocktail dress that is also just plain black and has a demure front but hugs my curves and is so backless it's dangerous? The new gray Chinese gown with the high elegant neck that fits me perfectly? Or the sparkly deep blue dress that is a great color, has interesting details, and looks absolutely fantastic on me?

Ah, decisions, descisions. My choice will probably be influenced by which dress I wear in other recent events, such as for The Prince Comes of Age at Festival. Hair and accessories will be chosen based on the dress. That still doesn't narrow it down much. Maybe I could just do that diva thing where I change outfits periodically throughout the evening. ;-)

There are of course other things I will have to plan for it. But for now, all I care about is how pretty I'm going to look!

My schedule is about to be loaded up again soon. The next three nights will be full of pleasant social, and then I've got one more light week before I get slammed with all sorts of fun but demanding events.

During the day on Saturday I'm in a last-minute larp, a run of Two Hours in London for all the people who've been wanting to play but haven't yet. I have a costuming hint but no character, but I'm not terribly troubled. My costume is not going to be amazing since I don't really have many pieces in the Victorian way. When I have cash that is something I would be interested in rectifying, but for now I can throw something together. blendedchaitea has very graciously offered to lend me her black tiered skirt, and I have a bodice or two I can wear over a blouse for something that looks vaguely appropriate.

After next week is Othello tech week which I have promised to help out with. I actually really enjoy tech weeks, despite how much work and time they require, because I love the process of everyone working together to put together a piece of theater. It's also a rare occasion which I get to build things with tools and learn more physical skills. I imagine it will be helpful to have an extra pair of hands who doesn't have to worry about being ready to go onstage as well. I'm so excited for the set for this show, which is going to look and work differently from anything HTP has ever done before. The costuming and makeup, too, I expect to be phenomenal, so I can't wait to get a look at it.

The week after that is prep for Festival, which will happen the following weekend. I'm so excited to see how the first con I've ever chaired comes out. Things are looking good, except for one or two games I am still exhorting people to fill. I have done a significant chunk of the printing for The Stand, but most of the packing will have to get done that week. We still must figure out what game will be running in what space, but that won't be too hard once we have all the data we need.

After that comes tech week (after a fashion) for Magic at Midsummer, followed by the performance. I cannot tell you how amused I am to have a calendar item that says "undress rehearsal." ;-) One thing I've been really looking forward to is getting to rehearse with the full cast. Thus far we've only each done our own pieces, more or less at the right times in the song, but I really want to see what the whole thing looks like all put together. It'll be easier to learn cues that way too.

And that is my next month or so. Yowza. It strikes me that I would like to have a party, after all this madness is over. A fancy dress-up party, with tasty canapes and people in snazzy clothes, for the purpose of celebrating my general fabulousness. I find this a worthy and amusing endeavor. More updates to follow as I figure this out.

I am super psyched for the Hold Thy Peace tenth anniversary party this Saturday. It's going to be really big with food and lots of HTPers and an open mic portion of the evening and it's going to go late into the night. I don't know if I'll stick around for the sleepover, seeing as my actual bed is going to be a couple streets away, but I would like to show back up for pancakes in the morning. I am struck with the desire to wear something fun for it, so I might dress up if that's not too out of place.

A little stressed about housing for next year. It looks like I may have found new people to occupy Elsinore for the coming year, but they're not friends and I think I've gotten used to living with people I like AND live well with. Not delighted with that, but at least I'd keep my bedroom and my entertaining space and wouldn't have to move. I'm also a little bit nervous that things might change and somebody isn't going to be sticking around after all, in which case I'll either have to chase someone new down, or else find another place. It could be that there isn't much on the market yet with June 1st move in dates, but my cursory explorations have not revealed much that would work for me. Definitely nothing one-bedroom in my price range, so I'd have to find at least one roommate, and I don't know who I would even ask about that. My new job is in Waltham, so I don't want to move too far from that. *Sigh* This is complicated stuff, and it's starting to make me edgy. We'll see what happens, I guess.

Working furiously on preparing The Stand. I worked pretty from the minute I got home from work yesterday to the minute I went to bed. Got a lot done, but of course my printer would choose THIS week to screw itself up, when I need to print about a million pieces of paper.

I have made up most of the written materials. The written bits for the map are, I think, the only bits that still need writing up. I designed the cards for the horse wrangling minigame. Everything still needs to be printed, except for the letter. Oh, my goodness, but this game has letters. Letters are going to be very, very important.

One thing I enjoy about The Stand is that I constructed it entirely out of western tropes and built upon them from there. I am hoping that I sufficiently spun them into something more interesting, but I wanted to utilize the stock characters of the genre as my basis and go from there. Genre studies interest me, so I thought it would be a fun experiment.

On a semi-related note, I miss having dinner parties. I've barely had any at all in the past month or so, and they've always been one of my favorite ways to socialize. This has been a direct result of needing all the time I had to make sure the game got written. I had one this past Friday just to blow off some steam, and though I made a bunch of rookie cooking mistakes due to having to rush from writing to dinner prep, it reminded me how lovely they are. After Intercon, I want to get back into the swing of them. I'm sure you've all missed them terribly. After all, my dinner parties are THE social events of the season, and anybody who's anybody loves to come to them. ;-)

A year or so ago, Jared's parents went on a Mediterrainean cruise and brought me back a woven scarf in various shades of pink/purple/blue on black. At the time I didn't really think it was my style; it was a little over-embellished for my tastes and I don't usually wear patterned things. At first the only way I really cared to wear it was as a wrap over my mesh shirt, a look I still enjoy when it's warm enough and not totally in poor taste. ;-) But as I tried to dress more like a grownup, I realized what a versatile accessory it was. It complements a surprising array of colors-- black, white, cream, gray, navy, green, purple, pink, blue. It occurs to me that I've always chosen solid scarfs because I thought they would coordinate better, but shockingly this patterned thing goes with more outfits than any of my others, and because it's so striking-looking I get compliments on it all the time. Perhaps patterns, at least in scarves, might be the way to go in the future.

Winter's Tale cast party was last night. It went beautifully well, filled with nice friends and good food. Jared helped me clean the house and then Bernie and Charlotte helped me cook. We made a Rachel Ray chicken dish with apples and onions with a basil-tomato-mozzarella bruschetta on the side, while lots of other snacks and treats were brought potluck by the guests. I was reminded what a great cast Winter's Tale was blessed to have, not only because of their talent but because of what great people they are.

Proposal meeting tonight. We shall have a new show, or two, for next semester. I am excited for Hold Thy Peace build on the momentum Winter's Tale has generated and keep improving the quality of output. Onward and upward, as they say. :-)

Halloween was a smashing success, filled with good friends and delicious food. I was cooking literally all day with the gracious help of

katiescarlett29, and produced five tasty fall-themed dishes-- pear and parsnip puree, squash soup, cornbread, gingerbread, and pumpkin pie --in addition to a spiral-sliced ham that was even more delicious than I hoped it would be. The costumes were also fantastic, highlights including

in_water_writ and

1takejohnny's Harley Quinn and the Joker,

morethings5 as Dexter Morgan,

electric_d_monk in the full regalia of a Victorian countess,

marigumi and Matt as Hit-Girl and Kickass, and a Princess Bride-themed group that culiminated in

lightgamer-as-Inigo and

nennivian-as-Rugen's climactic duel to the death. Honorable mention goes to Plesser, in Scooby-Doo-themed scrubs, as Nurse Not-a-Slut (Even on Halloween), RN. And special thanks to

nennivian for decorating the living room. :-)

But now I am well-contented, but ridiculously tired. I was up late straightening up afterward, and had to get up for work this morning. Now I am seriously dragging. I would love to get a nap in this afternoon, but today I have errands to run, family obligations, and rehearsal in the evening, so I may just have to soldier on.

Did you know that grocery stores don't carry spiral-cut hams as a matter of course? I mean, I knew they were special occasion foods, but I figured people bought them for parties any old time. I'm disappointed, I wanted to have one for Halloween this year, but I was told that they are usually only available on pre-order for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Bah, I love ham, and it would have saved me a lot of work. I could get one at a specialty store like Honey-Baked Ham, but I'm not sure the convenience would outweigh the expense. The alternative is to roast a pork loin, which wouldn't be as expensive, but probably a lot more work. I do have a good one with apples and mirepoix, so that's an option.

Everything else will be vegetarian and kosher-dairy. Other items on my list at the moment are cornbread, gingerbread, and pear and parsnip puree. Wow, this is going to be one starchy spread. But I guess fall foods tend that way. I also want to do something with squash. I'm considering my favorite butternut squash soup, to give a substantial alternative to the pork, though soup may a bit awkward to serve. Ah, well, I may just do it anyway. The puree is a show-offy dish and always a favorite, though it is a wee bit labor intensive to make. I'd also like to do something with cranberries, besides the juice I'd like to serve out of Skully's head. (We're actually calling him Yorick now, on Charlotte's suggestion, which you may scoff at as uncreative, but we live at Elsinore, so there.) And besides cranberry juice, there will be apple cider and probably some Coke as well. Must remember to make sure I have enough paper flatware. This is going to require a lot of work, but fortunately there are several lovely people I plan on drafting into service as kitchen slaves. There will probably be lots of other random edibles, like Halloween candy and perhaps some snacky things like chips and pretzels, but those will be the real foods I'm planning on making.

Must look into that ham...

I am now back from my lovely excursion, and smack back in the middle of work and responsibilities. Ah, well. Idle hands are the devil's workshop and all that. It was nice to have such a lovely break.

I have a number of things going on right now, but since Halloween is less than a week away, my preparations must buckle down in earnest. My costume is very nearly in order. I am pretty much just wearing the bellydancer outfit I assembled for Stars of Al-Ashtara-- I was not feeling particularly inspired this year and it saves me having to construct an extra costume. I could use a few more little details like a veil and maybe some bangles, but I can figure that out. I just need to finish sewing the waistband into the skirt I am making from the fabulous patterned blue muumuu I thrifted. It's a bigger job than I thought it would be, because there is so damn much fabric. I will put an elastic inside this case I'm sewing so that it will gather around my waist just fine, but that case has to be very long before the elastic can get in there to scrunch it up. Such is the nature of a muumuu, I suppose. I guess I could cut a chunk out of it to make it smaller, but I kind of like how full it is, and it wouldn't exactly eliminate a lot of sewing if I had to sew the side back up as well. So, I'm just going to keep on with the casing. I'm about a third of the way finished, so I should be able to get it done before the day.

I also need to plan the goodies menu. I want to have lots of tasty seasonal delicacies available, but I have yet to decide what they are. Pie is certainly desireable, and I will probably go with pumpkin but apple is a possibility as well. Cider is another fall favorite of mine. Besides apples and pumpkins, other foods I associate with fall are cranberries, squash, pears, ginger, and corn, so I will have to figure out what sort of things I can make involving those. Suggestions as well as the volunteering to bring dishes are welcome.

Whatever my spread, the centerpiece of it will be my newest acquisition, my beautiful skull bottle. In the liquor store on Main Street I saw that there is now a kind of vodka out called Crystal Head, which is sold in this fantastic bottle in the shape of a skull. I don't drink, and the stuff inside it was fifty bucks a pop, but I had to have one for this Halloween. So I stalked an empty one on eBay, nabbed it in triumph, and returned last night to find it already delivered and waiting!

Creepy little bugger, isn't he? I'm not sure what I'll fill him with-- kind of makes me wish I drank just so I could put some creative and brightly-colored cocktail in him --but I want him to serve a drink. Maybe cranberry juice, for the fall feel and the bright blood red. Ah, so much planning to do, and so much lovely cooking to get ready for! God, I love Halloween.

So I am only just now getting to the point where I feel confident enough in my cooking skills that I feel I can experiment with at least a chance that the results will turn out edible. I tend to cook for large groups, and I've shied away from experimenting in the past because if I fail in that instance, well, my large group will have no dinner! But I am now at the point where I know how certain things react to certain cooking methods, and how different flavors go together, so I think it is time that I try to expand into developing my own cooking style through experimentation. This weekend saw two major forays for me.

( On the ratatouille, the unqualified success. )

( On the mini-pies and tart, which had more mixed results. )

So I suppose when you experiment with food, you're going to hit some and you're going to miss some. The more I try it, the better I'll get at it, and in turn my all my cooking skills will improve. Heh, after all, my new motto when it comes to entertaining is Horace's fine quotation, "A host is like a general-- it takes a mishap to reveal his genius." I certainly can't be afraid that things are going to go wrong with that outlook, now, can I? :-)

Wah, so busy. Busy at work, busy at play, and busy all this week. I was going over my schedule for the next week and it is packed. Yesterday I spent the day with Jared until it was time to take him to the airport, and then I helped Steph run her auditions for Winter's Tale. We saw a lot fewer people than signed up, but there were definitely some promising candidates. Unfortunately due to family committment I was unable to attend the second round. My parents are in town today and tomorrow to help my brother move from his old apartment into his new one, and I am expected to report for moving crew duty. There's a chance I can show up tonight for callbacks, but I'm afraid I won't count on it. Thursday won't be so complicated, but this weekend is packed full. There are two parties I must attend, one of which I must cook for, as well as a show to see. Rawr, so very, very busy.

At least I did something useful today. To make up for my deliquency at auditions, today I ran Steph through my favorite exercise to help with casting a show, the one where you make lots and lots of sample casts in different combinations to see how you feel about them. She's considering a lot of people for a lot of roles, and doing this helps you compare how you feel about one person as opposed to another in any given part. I've used it a lot in the past, and I think the stuff we talked about it will help her run an efficient callback. I'm really excited to see how things go!

Jared gets in today! I'm so excited. I will be picking him up from the airport around five-thirty, and then we will go out for a dinner at a nice Italian place in the (surprisingly close nearby) North End, followed by coming to BSCF. We should probably be there around eight o'clock and staying for the rest of the evening, for those of you who would like to see the boy while he's in town.

In housemate news, we now have a Jane at Elsinore! She got in around the middle of the day yesterday, and with her arrival, the place is now complete. I hope she is settling in comfortably, and enjoys living there with us. I'm glad to have her, and I'm also glad that things will finally be able to settle. It's looking like Elsinore's going to be a pretty fun place to be now.

Which brings me to the thought of how, especially lately, Elsinore has been a favorite hangout spot. This pleases me, because I love entertaining. One of the best things, in my opinion, about living at Elsinore is that there is the kitchen and living room space necessary to have people over to do things like hang out, have gaming gatherings, and my very favorite form of socialization, the dinner party.

Cooking has become a major hobby of mine as well as something I've gotten kind of good at, so it gives me a lot of job to be able to share it with the special people in my life. I very much have internalized the notion that food is love. By going to the time and effort to cook something delicious to serve to people I care about, I am showing the love I have for my guests and my desire to make them happy. I also love food as a social lubricant. Some of the best and most comfortable conversations I've had with large groups of people have happened over a dinner table sharing a tasty meal. It's so easy to connect with each other that way-- I suspect that it is because of this that so much of human ritual, ceremony, and celebration incorporates people eating together as a major aspect.

It also enormously helps my development as a cook. As much as I enjoy cooking for its own sake, like pretty much everyone I find it much more worthwhile to cook for a large group. It feels like a greater return on the effort. And I like the challenges it offers me as a menu planner. What meal can I design that will appeal to everyone's tastes, and satisfy the requirements of the vegetarians, the carnivores, the kosher people, all on the same plate? I like serving lots of different things to my guests, so it keeps me looking for new dishes to try in order to keep the menu interesting. And then I get external feedback. Are things cooked to your liking? Do the flavors of a given dish go well together? Do you find the various dishes I picked for the meal to be complementary? What did I do well, and what should I change for next time? I want to improve as a cook, so I am really interested in varied sources of feedback, and I certainly love talking about cookery and food, so the discussion is interesting as well as useful to me. And of course there's the validation factor-- I love getting compliments on what I serve! So basically having people over is a perfect combination of my favorite things, good food, good friends, and compliments. No wonder I love throwing parties!

Had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend. Went to a fantastic party with Bernie,

lightgamer, and

morethings5, who are some of my favorite people to do anything with, let alone going to fun parties. I had a blast at this same party last year, and so was really really looking forward to going to this year's. My excitement grew when shortly before the day,

captainecchi sent out an e-mail saying we could swim in the lake if we brought our swimsuits! I was so happy we did; that was the first time I'd been swimming in over a year, and it was a lot of fun. My poor bikini doesn't get to come out and play often enough! We swam and canoed and explored islands and I didn't get the whole story but I'm pretty sure Kindness beat a bear into submission with his bare fists. ;-) It was cool. Then we came back to the house where

electric_d_monk grilled up some fantastic burgers, hot dogs, and corn on the cob. I had made my "inaccessible rice," as some are wont to call it, with the golden raisins, pecans, mint, and scallions and brought it along. And because the beef in the burgers was locally grown,

lightgamer actually got to eat one! I was happy for him, since they were damn good burgers, and I am sorry when anyone can't enjoy deliciousness. Then there were board games, fantastic strawberry shortcake, and

morethings5 sweetly offering to learn how to brush out my hair. The party was a blast, the food was excellent, the company was great, and it was also lovely getting to spend time with

captainecchi and

electric_d_monk. Thanks to our gracious hosts for having such a fun gathering!

Marissa moved into Elsinore on the Fourth as well. Unfortunately I was at the party when she got in, and due to feeling sick and gross with the heat the next day I did not so much welcome her as spend the day hiding from all human contact like a small wild animal. I shall have to rectify that soon. I may also have to take steps to rectify the intense heat situation in my bedroom. For some reason, no matter what the weather, my room is always the mostly extremely affected in the house, making it an icebox in winter and a blast furnace in summer. Climate control is expensive, but it's getting to the point of unbearableness.

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All Eyes on Me

"Do you know why heroes boast? Because it makes them brave."

Entries tagged with party

Things to do

Invitation! THE BALLROOM SCENE: Arisia 2017 Production Showcase Gala

Entertaining

Get out of my ear already

This is Halloween, this is Halloween...

RSVP etiquette

Fancy party achieved

The party general

Party dresses!

Scheduling madness

HTP party, and housing concerns

Packing, and dinner parties once more

Bits and pieces

Halloween: success!

Halloween menu planning

Halloween is coming

Beginning to experiment with food

Waaaaah, busy

Jane at Elsinore, and on entertaining

Awesome Independence Day

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