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Dept. of Social Interaction
Saturday, 24 May 2025 10:27 pmEntertaining: the Art of Maintaining Spoons
We had a young friend over for supper tonight. He's a reporter I've known for a few years. He's very good at what he does, although I sometimes wonder if he fully realizes it. He is an immigrant, whose family came to the U.S. when he was fairly young, and he's worked through some challenges, and done so very well, in my opinion. He recently became an American citizen.
I put together some slow-cooker beef bourguignon (well, it started that way, but I added a lot more than just red wine, plus vegetables that don't normally go into that dish), and an orange cake, put the place generally to rights, with Bob's help. I'd hoped to dust the living room, but Bob got the carpet vacuumed, and that made the place presentable.
For a wonder, everything was ready when our friend got here. It's been some time (as in, a few years) since we've had him over. We truly are hermits; we have friends who we haven't interacted with for horribly long periods of time ... anyhow, last week I ran into him at a social event for people who work for one of the local online news outlets I do stringer work for. He was feeling fairly down for various reasons, and asked if I could give him a hug. Well, that did it for me; I had to have him over for supper.
We had a really enjoyable time with him, for a couple of hours, and then I had to bring the evening to a close. The physical reason was because my back was starting to suggest that I should find some heat or ice as soon as possible. The mental and emotional reason was that I abruptly lost every one of my remaining spoons and I needed to be alone with Bob, STAT.
It happens to me, and to Bob. We still enjoy entertaining people, albeit not nearly as much as we used to, when we had a larger place, but it's always been tiring, and these days it's even more so. Entertaining people means you have to put your own best foot forward; you have to be on, in order to make sure your guests have a good time, to make sure you're listening to them, to make sure you're not talking too much at their expense, and so much more. And yes, you work hard to present yourself as an excellent host.
It is fucking exhausting. It's fun, but only for a given amount of time. Once that last spoon is gone? It's time to beat a determined retreat.
And that's what I'm about to do. Painkillers and heating pads, ho!
We had a young friend over for supper tonight. He's a reporter I've known for a few years. He's very good at what he does, although I sometimes wonder if he fully realizes it. He is an immigrant, whose family came to the U.S. when he was fairly young, and he's worked through some challenges, and done so very well, in my opinion. He recently became an American citizen.
I put together some slow-cooker beef bourguignon (well, it started that way, but I added a lot more than just red wine, plus vegetables that don't normally go into that dish), and an orange cake, put the place generally to rights, with Bob's help. I'd hoped to dust the living room, but Bob got the carpet vacuumed, and that made the place presentable.
For a wonder, everything was ready when our friend got here. It's been some time (as in, a few years) since we've had him over. We truly are hermits; we have friends who we haven't interacted with for horribly long periods of time ... anyhow, last week I ran into him at a social event for people who work for one of the local online news outlets I do stringer work for. He was feeling fairly down for various reasons, and asked if I could give him a hug. Well, that did it for me; I had to have him over for supper.
We had a really enjoyable time with him, for a couple of hours, and then I had to bring the evening to a close. The physical reason was because my back was starting to suggest that I should find some heat or ice as soon as possible. The mental and emotional reason was that I abruptly lost every one of my remaining spoons and I needed to be alone with Bob, STAT.
It happens to me, and to Bob. We still enjoy entertaining people, albeit not nearly as much as we used to, when we had a larger place, but it's always been tiring, and these days it's even more so. Entertaining people means you have to put your own best foot forward; you have to be on, in order to make sure your guests have a good time, to make sure you're listening to them, to make sure you're not talking too much at their expense, and so much more. And yes, you work hard to present yourself as an excellent host.
It is fucking exhausting. It's fun, but only for a given amount of time. Once that last spoon is gone? It's time to beat a determined retreat.
And that's what I'm about to do. Painkillers and heating pads, ho!
