The Party Rages

I am currently sitting in my niece's bedroom. All partied out. It's only 9:30 p.m!

The party rages on. It's my little brother's 50th birthday, a costume party, and everyone will continue for some time, and a few until the wee hours.

Being the oldest of four, I used to be the one that went until the wee hours. They straggled along behind. Now I'm the one done after, say four or five hours. When did this change? When did I throw in the party towel?

I guess it's part of growing up, while growing older, realizing a little is better than too much.

Better than growing older, without growing up, me thinks.

Now I'm like my Gram once was, I'm the cook, the one who cleans up, laughing and having a good time, but not needing to overdo, content with being in the background keeping things clean and moving.

One of our friends died last week. He was our age. His wife came home and found him. A lifetime of playing and working hard. At everything.

I feel content to let the party rage on without me tonight.

Party Pack

For those of you new to my blog, we moved from the city in which I was born and raised (Reno, NV), and lived for 50 years, (OMG 50?), to Portland OR for 2.5 years and then 2 years in the Twin Cities. For all of my life I can remember wanting to move and live somewhere else other than where I was born. Before we moved to Portland we bought a place at Lake Tahoe, about 25 minutes from Reno, and kept it while living elsewhere. So we always had one foot back in my home state.

One of the things I noticed when I moved to these other areas was how hard it was to establish new friendships. In fact what I noticed was that friendships, real friendships, require time and energy. Or they need to have some kind of history in order to be meaningful. Otherwise they are acquaintances. We no longer attend school functions, so friendships were not formed while sitting on bleachers for hours watching our children play soccer, or dance recitals, or school functions and carpools. We met our neighbors, but because of lifestage differences, the friendships were warm but not conducive to being very close. We found that our true friendships remained back in Nevada, where we had left our history.

Which brings me to last night. We were invited to a very old friend's home to welcome back their son who has been deployed with the Navy. To say we had fun is an understatement. There is something about toasts in your honor, great big meaningful hugs, and a "party pack". A party pack is a pack of very thin Capri cigarettes that my friends and I would occasionally indulge, after several glasses of wine, since our children were tiny and easily ditched for ten minutes. They were carefully hidden in the recesses of our shelves in the garage of our home of 16 years. Which was right behind the home of said friends, and right next door to other neighbors who had children the same age. We raised our children together, spent hours and hours talking, laughing, drinking boxed wine, trading coupons, cooking huge potluck dinners, and occasionally disappearing for a cig (gasp!) Women only.

So last night was all about reminiscing. One conversation was about my children being fifth-generation native Nevadans, and that Bruno, a little bar owner in Gerlach, Nevada, known far and wide as the "voice of Nevada" to anyone attending Burning Man, is actually a fraud, having only moved here in the 1950's. My father's family moved there in the 1800's. Who else would care about that story? No one outside of a small circle of long-time Nevadans, believe me!

Little did I know I am known far and wide for my wonderful cooking! Who knew? Of course I did do a lot of cooking in those days as I had children to feed and I took great pride in showing my love for everyone with food. I had no idea I would be remembered for it. And there, carefully tucked underneath the coffee table on the deck of their home, hidden from view, was a thin pack of Capri cigs...

I guess there is no place like home.

Ta-kill-ya

Most people don't believe me when I say this, but... for some reason I can drink a large quantity of tequila without getting drunk. I know, you will say, you just think you're not drunk! But since I was a young woman I can drink way more tequila, if I sip it like a cocktail, all by itself/not mixed with anything sugary, than any other drink. Wine makes me very light-headed after only two glasses, especially at this altitude. Same with an Old Fashioned or any other mixed drink. (I rarely drink anything alcohol any more.) But tequila just doesn't have the same effect. I had a "flight" of three different tequilas tonight with dinner and a shot before, and I feel the same way as if I had one glass of wine. Relaxed, but not really tipsy. (I was shocked at the many, many different tequilas. Some with a "salt" flavor and citrus, some with vanilla, some that were $23 per shot). I passed on the last one.

Any one else out there that loves their tequila, like wine drinkers love their wine?