It was a lovely summer weekend, though I was anxious going into it. I was anxious because we were hosting and also, I have a patch of mold that I need to figure out what to do with in the main floor guest bathroom. You host, and this two inch patch of blackness can just perch in your mind for weeks. We had a ten-person dinner party on Saturday night. We like to host, but it’s been a little while since we’ve hosted regularly. For many years, we put together Sunday night dinner at the house for 10-14, but that hasn’t happened in about two years since Gene and Bette have stopped driving and we all go to them. It was supposed to be a thank you party for the canvass team at the church for doing a great job this year from the board, but like 4 days before, it seemed like only a few people could make it and I groaned and was like omg, no one wants to come to my party! unhappy face and Jeremy was like – it’s totally OK! It’ll be OK if it’s just us. But in the end, it was really fine and fun and dandy. I spent the day in the kitchen with Jeremy which is one of my favorite things to do with Jeremy, I’m baking, Jeremy is cooking. Neither of us talking very much, just very companionable. (Though Jeremy was like, if we do this more often, we have to be more explicit who is in which section of the kitchen).
At the same time as cooking an entire meal for ten people, Jeremy helped Ginny cook four chickens for Joab’s birthday party on Sunday. All ovens were in use.
Sunday was busy with church-y things, I stopped by Joab’s birthday party and met a new friend.
This is what the chicken turned into – the amazingly delicious tostada. OMG, she is such a good cook.
Gene and Bette are getting rid of all their good liquor. We only took home the port. There was also this very complicated plant light situation which Jeremy got himself in the middle of which I mildly disapproved of, so I kept my mouth shut. Gene has a bunch of plants on a windowsill that need more light, so Gene bought long lights and jerry rigged them up from the top of the window. Now these, generously speaking, radiate out from all sides and look like you can land a plane on the window, reflecting every which way – blinding all who dare look at the window. Jeremy decided to help out by buying the same type of lights but shielded with a cover that would – theoretically – aim the light only down towards the plants. And for whatever weird reason, Jeremy bought them in a pink hue. So as we were manhandling all this liquor fighting over the Johnny Walker Blue Label, Jeremy was trying to mount these lights on the window. Now – a few issues – the shielding really only works if your eye level is above the shield because instead of like 360 degrees of light from a rod, you are getting like 160 degrees of light. It’s like instead of getting pie in the full face, it’s just misses your right cheek. Still not super great, unless you like pie. And it’s also pink – I’m like why did you get pink? And Jeremy was like – it’s what Bette wanted! Anyways – the 2nd issue was that Gene would not let us get rid of the first set of lights! So now there are four sets of unattractive lights with random power cords and command strips and metal chains in the main window of the dining room. And, thus, we ended the night, with a more cluttered window, but less cluttered in the liquor cabinet.
All this is layered on top of the fact that I have spent a long time on houseplant youtube watching people who have hundreds of plants set up grow lights to encourage their full sun plants to flourish in the depths of winter in a room with no natural light. It is very difficult and expensive to make this desired look anywhere near normal/good and not like a fluorescent ceiling of a 24 hour Walmart at 2 am. So difficult and expensive that I decided, in my own house, if you can not survive in the low light conditions of my house – please go ahead and die. And I will replace you with another plant who will try to survive in my rugged environment. ( I do have a few plant lights because I like to experiment with full sun plant – most notably my venus fly trap which needed not only a plant light like 4 inches from it, but also distilled water. I kept this plant alive for one year until it caught a fly naturally in my house and ate it and now, because it needed both hipster light and water, it is now….dead. Anyways, this plant light is very attractively housed in a mid-century-modern thrifted desk lamp. Which is far as I can go with plant lights. I draw the line right there. ) All my houseplants, if you go to Hawaii, you will find them the size of trees – towering over buildings and mountains – delighted in the sun and humidity. It is so hard to have Hawaii in Maryland, if we could figure that out, we’d all be sipping island drinks with little paper umbrellas at home.
