Whoosh! Endless fun this weekend, finally ending …
Friday
The plan was to watch Watchmen with various folks, which turned out to work pretty darned well. Lee, De, and Jackie came over to the house to drop of their respective kids, for which we’d arranged sitting along with Katherine.
(Margie was originally going to come with us, but between wanting to get some party prep done and ambivalence over the reported violence level, she decided to do shopping and then get some sitter-supported quiet time over coffee and a book — not a bad choice.)
Lee, De and Rachel stayed overnight, rather than drive back down to the Springs, since they were coming to Margie Gras Saturday night …
Saturday
Most of the day was kind of pleasant lounging about. De took the kids to the zoo, Margie did some cooking, a few errands were run, and then …
Margie Gras!
Lee and De, Stan, Randy, Jackie, Bruce, Doyce and us. The theme this time was “pink,” and so in addition the normal panoply of liquor, we decided to specialize in pink drinks.
- Best drink of the night: The batch of Bahama Mamas that Doyce mixed up.
- Best new drink of the night: NUVO. Not that it was particularly great, but it was palatable. Think boozy Hawaiian Punch concentrate. Best served seriously chilled. I won’t search it out again, but if someone handed me a glass of it, I wouldn’t feel obliged to pour it out into a potted plant, or worry that it would kill said plant, unlike …
- Worst drink of the night: UV Pink Lemonade Vodka. My dear Lord, it tasted like rejects from a Soviet-era “Lemon Fresh!” floor cleaning solution factory. It actually surpassed Redcliff in unpalatability. Crikey.
Beyond the drink there was food, including won-tons, some yummy cheese fondue, bing bars, many dips and chip things, etc., and so forth. And, of course, it was about half the food we’d bought to serve …
Pretty much everyone but Doyce (who had to leave to pick up Kate at the airport) crashed at the house, as anticipated and planned. Actually called it a night at 1 a.m. (which, changing the clocks to Daylight Saving Time made it 2 a.m.).
Sunday
Folks sort of mozied to consciousness over the course of the early morning, with everyone up by 10. At which point we impromptu selected the “3 B’s” Margie Gras Brunch: Bacon, Bundt Cake, and Bubbly.
- Bacon was first, of course, as we split up a 3-lb. package. We did one batch in the microwave, one in a skillet, and one in the oven. Microwave was fastest. I (and most) liked the skillet rendition best, but there was a strong minority sentiment for the oven bacon (which took the longest).
- Bundt cake was a thematically appropriate Red Velvet bundt from Nothing Bundt Cake. Very smooth, rich, moist and yummy. We went through about half at brunch, and then others over the day finished off all but a slice or so.
- Bubbly was some champagne from the basement, quick-chilled in the freezer, with orange juice, orange-peach juice, and pineapple juice mixers from the night before for doing mimosas.
All in all, quite nice.
I did a bunch of dishes (a nice way to relax in fact), as folks noshed, showered, read, and generally relaxed.
Post-Margie Gras Game Day officially started at Noon. Lee and De left before that, but Randy had arrived, and most of the crew started in on Catan. Doyce and Kate came over a bit later, and games of Zombie Fluxx and Gloom. This all went on through several rounds and a few hours.
At one point, Kate asked why pink ice was coming out of the ice maker. Turns out I’d left a bottle of Strawberry Frizzante chilling in there, and it had frozen up and popped its cork. Made a nice ad hoc granita.
Eventually, folks started heading home, and by about 6 it was just us at the house, doing some picking up, packaging up left-overs, and generally relaxing amidst the debris.
Good times.
Hmmmm. Is it too late to take tomorrow off?
Thank you 🙂