robglazebrook.com

Whew. This weekend, Amanda and I successfully hosted our first-ever dinner party. Or party of any sort in this house, actually. And although it was a lot of work, it was totally worth it.

The final and official menu turned out pretty kick arse:

• For Dinner:
  • Turkey (brined & roasted) (via Amanda and I)
  • Chive Mashed Potatoes with Turkey Gravy (Ditto)
  • Apple-Herb Stuffing (Same)
  • Green Bean Casserole (Us again)
  • Cheesy Carrot Casserole (Sara!)
  • Homemade Cranberry Sauce (Anne!)
  • Dinner Rolls (Amanda and I)
• For Beverages:
  • 5 bottles red wine (via Amanda & I, Kate, Lindsay, Megan, and Anne)
  • 2 bottles white wine (via Amanda & I and Julie)
• For Dessert:
  • Four-Layer Pumpkin Cake (Megan)
  • Pecan Pie (Hannah & Toño)
  • Apple Crumble Pie (two of ‘em) (Amanda & I)
  • Flan (Hannah & Toño)
  • Chocolate & Vanilla Cupcakes (Sara)

So, Holy Crap, in other words. We had a lot to eat. :)

We had 11 people in attendance in total, counting The Hosts with the Mosts. People started arriving around 5:30pm, we all sat down to eat shortly after 6pm, and people filtered out slowly until pretty close to 11pm.

Dinner-Related Happenings of Note:

After peeling five pounds of potatoes what for the mashing, we tried sticking the peelings down the garbage disposal. The intense vibrations from the disposal unit trying to handle the extreme overabundance of ‘tater peels actually managed to shake the drainage pipe lose from the wall, causing a small flood of extremely starchy water all over the new floor. I got the pipe reattached, though, and after a bit of plunging, it didn’t cause us any more problems.

Smaug was being his usual social self during the meal, hanging around the dinner table and playing with anyone who happened to glance his way. At one point, he got bored and jumped up onto the credenza under the window. The only problem with that was, the credenza was covered from end to end with our desserts. He realized his mistake at the very last second and managed a mid-air course correction, missing the caramel top of the delicate Flan by a quarter inch and then stepping carefully around the pies before I caught him an inch from the side of the cake. He spent the rest of the evening locked in the basement.

Miles spent the majority of the dinner outside, because he was just a little too excited by all the new people and smells. Around dessert time, we felt sorry for him, and let him in while we ate our sugary snacks. He happily galloped around the table for a while, saying hello to everyone, and then wandered off for a bit. A few minutes later, we realized that while we were stuffing our faces with cake and pie, Miles was in the kitchen finishing off the turkey left on the platter. He managed to eat a good pound and a half of turkey before anyone noticed. Luckily, I hadn’t finished carving the bird, so there was still some left for leftovers.

But other than that, things went really smoothly. We’re calling the party a success, and are hoping it turns into a yearly tradition. :) And if you would like to see my photos of the evening, you need go no further than right about here.

Our dog, Miles Davis Standish Wurzinger Glazebrook, tore a chunk of his own hair out early last week in an effort to get to some sort of itchy, bumpy rash-looking thing on his back. This earned me a $100 vet bill, and him a shaved area on his back, an anti-itching spray, a pill twice daily, and an Elizabethan collar. Due to futuristic look of the collar, Amanda and I took to calling him Space Dog! (do do-do!) whenever he was looking glum (which was often). He enjoyed the attention the name got him, so it cheered him up a bit. In fact, by the end of last week he was feeling so cheery that he managed to chew the arm off of Amanda’s futon despite the logistical challenge the collar presented. Amanda was understandably less impressed than Miles.

Miles’ futonic tendencies, however, did lead to an interesting discovery: if you take one cat and one large strip of duct tape, and then abruptly combine the two, the result is several minutes of quality entertainment. I was putting strips of duct tape on the futon, sticky side up, to try and teach Miles not to jump up on it. Smaug seemed pretty interested in this process, and kept sneaking up and pawing at the strips as I tried to lay them down. Struck by what I have to assume was divine inspiration, I grabbed a long stripe of tape and stuck it on his back. He immediately freaked out like I’ve never seen him before and took off running. But he couldn’t get away from the tape, which freaked him out even more, causing him to run even faster. He also kept turning around mid-sprint to try and attack the tape, which made him run into walls. It was, pardon my French, le awesome.

And how is the official duct tape experiment going, you ask? Well, twice now we’ve had to tear duct tape off the dog’s rear end. The second time, the tape was pretty well wrapped around his hind leg, and a moderate amount of hair came off with the tape, which he didn’t seem to enjoy. That’s encouraging, even if it does suggest he’s something of a slow learner. Of course, three times now I’ve walked into the living room to discover it strewn with little pieces of slobbery, chewed-up duct tape. I don’t know if he’s tearing it off himself and chewing it up, or just eliminating the booby-traps before he gets on the futon, but the resultant mess is the same. As with most of our dog-related experiments, I think he’s winning so far.