A Successful Dinner Party

This past Saturday we hosted Kate’s PEO chapter for dinner. We had 23 including ourselves. Kate had worked for weeks (since just before Thanksgiving) getting the house ready which meant mostly decorating. I had encouraged her to ask a friend who is a decorator to help her, and she said she would but wanted to start by herself. She never did call her, and the house looked beautiful for the party. She enjoyed the task and had plenty of time to arrange and re-arrange for the weeks preceding the event.

To make things as easy as possible, we decided from the outset that we would get the entrée from Altruda’s, a local Italian restaurant, one of the other members would prepare a salad, I would get the wine, and Kate would prepare the dessert. As we got down to the wire on Thursday, there was still a good bit of work to do. I tried to gently hint that Kate prepare the desserts (flan and chocolate mousse) during the day on Friday. Time got away from her, and she still hadn’t started the desserts before we had to leave for a friend’s 80th birthday party. When we returned, she did the mousse and decided to wait until the next morning for the flan.

She took a long time to start and when she was preparing the mousse and the flan, she got confused regarding the specific ingredients and whether or not she had them on hand and whether or not she had already put them in. At one point she sent me to the store for condensed milk. When I returned home, she discovered she had it. Similarly, she said she was short 16 oz. of cream cheese. I went to the store. While I was gone, she found it.

Late in the day, I indicated that this was quite a job and that I had hoped to spare her the stress of doing the party. Her response was that this was probably the last one of these events she would do, and she REALLY wanted to do it. It broke my heart, and we didn’t talk about it again until the next day. It went off well, and I told her she could be very proud. I wasn’t just saying this. It was a terrific event.

One follow up is that she cannot find the power cord to her computer. I am guessing that when she was putting things away before the party, she put the power cord someplace and can’t find it. She asked me to help her locate it last night, but neither of us had success.

This morning after my walk I went into the bedroom where I saw her changing the time on her clock. She was concentrating intently. I wanted to help but let her do it herself. I think I did the right thing because a little later her hair dresser called to postpone today’s hair appointment. Kate worked a good while trying to change the appointment on her iPhone. When I offered to help, she said she wanted to do it herself. She told me she would ask if she wanted me to help. As I have noted before, I think both of us are wondering what things will be like a year from now.