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unimpressible children
Sunday, January 19 2025
Today was the day of the big bash we'd be having to celebrate Gretchen's 54th birthday. But, it being late January, a winter storm was predicted to begin just around the time the party was to begin and the prediction called for as much as eight inches of snow to fall. That's a lot, the sort of amount that will cause events to be canceled. But it was Gretchen's birthday and her friend Marisa was coming north from Manhattan with a cake. It couldn't be postponed. So Gretchen decided it was still on, and that it was understandable if anyone decided it was too treacherous to come.
Meanwhile one of the pasta dishes Gretchen had made contained too little basil, and she was thinking about driving into town to get some more. I said that I'd be happy to go, and so Neville and I drove out to the Uptown Hannaford (aka "Ghettoford") while Gretchen was walking Charlotte in the forest. I also brought a couple empty quart cans of two of the four Sherwin Williams paint colors used on the laboratory floor (Jargon Jade and Lemon Twist) so I could get more for continuing the floor repainting. The basil I ended up buying was better, Gretchen said, than the stuff she'd bought the other day at Adam's. (Adam's, she says, normally has by far the best produce when it is in season, but evidently Hannaford can occasionally get great-looking produce from the Southern Hemisphere.)
While Gretchen continued working in the kitchen, I repainted most of the lime-green I'd recently painted behind my main computer desk. That color was close to Jargon Jade but not quite, and I wanted the top coat to match the rest of the floor. (When painting a board made of OSB, it doesn't really matter what colors one uses until one gets to the top coat, as lots of paint layers are required just to make the surface acceptably smooth.)
At around noon, the pre-party began as early arrivals began to arrive, beginning with Fern (who is staying for a few days in High Falls). Next came Marisa, who'd driven up from her apartment in Manhattan with a homemade cake that she then proceeded to decorate in detail.
We decided we should move all our cars over to Alison's driveway before the party to open up room in our driveway. Normally people can just park along Dug Hill Road, but in the middle of a snowstorm, the town is going to want to be able to plow snow off the sides of the road. I actually parked the Subaru Forester just off the Farm Road near Dug Hill Road, while everyone else drove over to Alison's place (which is currently a major construction site, as the house is being completely renovated).
The bulk of the party celebrants arrived at 3:00pm while snow was falling at a substantial rate. The first to arrive were Chris & Kirsti, followed by a Lisa P., Ray and Nancy, Gretchen's friend "Grad School Kasey" with her plus one, and then our newer friends Lynne and Greg. Our friend Kate came by herself, as did our new friend Laura from over on Lorenz Road. Our neighbor Andrea (who lives directly across the street from Alison) showed up in the midst of all this and said that she normally doesn't drink, but that today she wanted a glass of champagne. A little later Aliso and he boyfriend Jamie materialized; they had to drive from a temporary residence in Stone Ridge, but she's Canadian, so driving in the snow is no big deal.
As advertised, nearly all the food tonight was some variation on the noodle. There was an Asian pesto dish, an Italian pesto dish, a mushroom stroganoff, and plenty of others. There were even gluten-free options for the four or five people who roll that way.
At the beginning of the party, Gretchen wanted to have a "strategy session" for surviving the second Trump administration, which would be commencing tomorrow. It seemed like a futile exercise, but perhaps it was good just to bond over a common source of anxiety. Andrea made the point that it was important to resist where possible and not to abandon hope, although as she said it, it seemed as though maybe she already had. As people said various things, Fern was on the floor taking notes on a big sheet of brown paper, making a diagram she calls a "mind map."
The party had been going on for awhile when another neighbor, Georges and his two young sons, arrived. They're the ones with the blue farm house that is the ultimate destination of the Farm Road. Gretchen had communicated with him earlier wondering if he needed to use the Farm Road, because otherwise we could use it for parking. In so doing, she invited him to the party, and he actually came. Georges' two kids are more than sixty years younger than he is, and I felt bad for them because there were no other kids at our party and nothing obviously fun to do. Making matters worse, they didn't want any food or even anything to drink (we had non-alcoholic options). And they weren't interested in petting the dogs or Lester the Cat (who had very much joined the party). So I tried showing them our harmonium, since a I figured a non-electronic pedal-powered music device would blow their minds. But they remained unimpressed. I'd been thinking this whole time that perhaps they really would be impressed by the laboratory, which looks like something off the set of Willy Wanka and the Chocolate Factory, and when Ray (who was also trying to save the kids from their boredom) suggested this, I said that sounded like a good thing to do. While I was going up there, I thought Lynne should come to, as this was the first time she'd ever been in our house. (She has severe allergies to dogs, and so had taken a huge dose of antihistamines before coming over.) The laboratory was looking amazing at the time, and I even turned on the disco ball and the colored LEDs that shine on it. But the kids just kind of shrugged. Their dad had joined us, though, and he seemed genuinely amazed. (I'd thought he'd seen it at some point in the past 22 years, but he hadn't.)
Some Grad School Kasey and her plus one were the first to leave, citing the weather. Gradually others peeled off, but not as quickly as I expected given the continued falling of the snow. (I was surprised so many people turned up to begin with, considering the weather.) Eventually everyone but Marisa was gone, and then she spent the night in our master guestroom.
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