Smiles of an Almost-Summer Afternoon
Yesterday was wonderful.
I didn’t think it would be, since it was supposed to very busy, what with a party of 30 adults and 9 children ranging from 7 months old to 15 planning to descend upon us from 3 to 5. These were my daughter and her husband’s friends, all in their late 30s and early 40s, very nice people. Still, I anticipated chaos, noise, lots of whining, kids crashing into tables full of food, food itself that wasn’t very good, guests who were too busy parenting to enjoy themselves. And most of all, great heat (well, for June 7, at about 30 degrees C) followed by violent thunder storms.
Instead, we got an afternoon where, despite the heat, the house was cool, with fans spinning, and the backyard cooler, full of wind blowing the things that maples shed at this time of the year and little girls in sundresses flitting around between the flowers and the young tomato plants. Adults sitting in house chairs on the patio, rather than in the house, laughing and talking, as children wove their way in and out, reporting booboos, getting watermellon slices and potato chips and soft drinks and fruit juice. The boys age 8 to 10 hunkered down in the tv room watching Star Wars; the girls helped decorate a white cake with smarties, then played with Barbies on a blanket on the lawn or drew with colored markers. All the children rode Phillippe the large, rusting rocking horse, or crawled into the tiny tent. Tallis, the youngest, alternated looking very sweet in a little green sundress and crying. Mostly, she rode around on Jeff’s arm, looking interested, or sat on Pasley’s lap. Both Jeff and John heroically pushed her around the neighborhood in the stroller to get her to sleep.
The food was good, the cake was better, and everyone helped, especially Marc LeG, who ferried little girls around on his shoulders apparantly tirelessly, then stayed to put chairs back and clean up the patio. (He will make a great husband and father some day!) There are people I got to talk to and those I wanted to talk to that I never got around to. I was in fairly good condition, but wheezing, and I could feel my blood pressure rising just from the stress, even though the party was very stress-free. But I was relatively pain-free, which was amazing, due to Lyrica and a short course of Prednisone.
And it seemed like ages ago that I had been so sick with a really drippy spring cold (Monday to Friday), and then a night of terrible dysentry-like stomach cramps and the trots that accompanied them (Thursday). Amazing how the body can jump back: I was able, on Friday night, the night after that ‘dysentry night,’ to go to a restaurant-located party for Vanier College teachers in Little Italy where the streets around were roped off and decorated with Lamberginis and other expensive sports cars, while beautiful people flitted about holding filled champagne flutes under white pavillions set up by the sports car reps. I ate a good dinner, chatted with people and felt fine. As I do today. Although I would be hard-pressed to accept any more social obligations today. Luckily we have none planned for today.
The occasion was to celebrate Jeff and Pasley’s 10th Anniversary. They both looked wonderful, with Jeff certainly the most handsome man in the room, and Paze the most beautiful, not even counting her red hair and wonderful cleavage in a truly remarkable green sundress with a full, gauzy skirt and nipped in waist and low neckline. They seemed very happy.
It was our Anniversary this week, too–our 40th. We didn’t really get to celebrate it because of my sickness, but hope to do so tomorrow night. All in all, a wonderful weekend thus far.
