Not a party

It wasn't a party. No, it definitely wasn't. It was more of an old-style "at home" without the Victorian dresses and endless talk of the weather--and of course we took mulled wine instead of tea!

Some favorite moments:

Fred singing a sultry rendition of Joni Mitchell's Twisted while we all clicked our fingers to the beat.

...My analyst told me

That I was right out of my head

He said I'd need treatment

But I'm not that easily led

He said I was the type

That was most inclined

When out of his sight

To be out of my mind...

Anne reciting from memory The Cremation of Sam McGee:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee...

Other choice fragments of the evening: Gary getting lost down the Labyrinthine mind of Louis MacNeice...Lizzy playing "Snowflakes" and Joy playing "Rhapsody"...a little recitation of Coleridge and a touch of Edward Lear...Lizzy reading my childhood favorite "Somewhere" by Walter de la Mare...Joy doing her best Eddie Izzard impression...the funny tale of how two of my favorite people--Gary and Fred, that's you! x--found each other eventually after a disastrous first not-meeting that gives new meaning to the term "blind-date"...great conversation...lots of laughs...

No, no, it wasn't a party. I had to cancel that, but somehow it didn't seem OK to let Boxing Day pass unmarked, so it was just a gathering of four or five friends, a little mulled wine, and yummy, quirky food including the newly invented Boxing Day Pie.

If all this sounds like your private idea of hell, you had a lucky escape, but if, like those who gathered, you think it just might have been rather wonderful, all is not lost. We're planning a redux evening with a reading of The Importance of Being Earnest.

As host, I'm shamelessly bagging Lady Bracknell right now (Bagging, geddit?):

"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate, exotic fruit. Touch it, and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever."

Download your copy of Oscar's masterpiece here, and choose your character. If you're reading this: you're invited!