Apologies and Whew!

If you came to my dinner party last night, hung around forever waiting for dinner, only to leave halfway into the early morning hours with not a bite to eat, I am very sorry. 

Also, if you suffered even more disappointment by having nothing to eat and having to sleep on the deck, I'm really, really sorry.

When I returned this morning, I saw that a few people were still at the house and others were stretched out snoozing away on the deck, which for some reason was facing south.

I also saw that others were in the kitchen, doing clean-up, including some tall man I'd never seen before.  

I have yet to learn what happened to the food items for the menu which I had intended to prepare for last night's gathering at my house.  

Maybe all the food is still there, or maybe someone else prepared it and, like the loaves and the fishes, maybe everyone who came last night did get a bite to eat. 

I just know I had not planned for that many guests to show up, so there was not that much to go around if someone else had gone ahead and cooked the dinner. 

This morning I'm in a total fog about why I neglected my guests and failed to serve them a lovely meal. 

All I know is that the first guest showed up long before I was even ready to prepare dinner. 

Then, they just kept coming and coming, through the front door, at the sliding-glass door and through the garage.

There were so many people taking my attention away from the kitchen that I could never steal a moment to simply stop the conversation and announce, "I've got to go cook dinner." 

So, I just kept trying to be a welcoming hostess, which led to my being swept away from one group to go visit with another. 

The rest is pretty vague.  

I do know that during this time, someone in the group wanted to show me a newly constructed building at their home, so we got in the car and drove there. 

The building may have been a McMansion.  All I know is that it was impressive, and that I told them so, still feeling very uncomfortable about my other guests back at the house who were probably getting pretty hungry by this time.

Finally, we left that place, which wasn't too far from our house, and drove home.  By this time, darkness had turned to daylight. 

Was I ever embarrassed when I spotted those people sleeping on the deck!  Fortunately, they did not wake up as I walked past them into the house where the strange man was cleaing up in my kitchen.  

Since I'm in such a fog about this entire scenario, which turned so embarrassing, I'm issuing a blanket apology, hoping that everyone who came to the house last night reads my blog. 

I feel terrible. Usually, I consider myself a good hostess who does everything to make everyone feel comfortable.  And, yes, feeding them when they show up for dinner is primary among my hospitality standards. 

I can't believe that I messed up so badly.  Nobody will ever want to come to my house again; not even hordes of uninvited guests who showed up last night, thinking they were gonna get a good meal and maybe a nice glass of Chardonnay or a bottle of Sierra Nevada ale. 

The only consolation for this debacle is that when I awakened half hour after my usual wake-up at 4:25 a.m., the insanity instantly stopped. 

Still, I felt exhausted from all the emotional turmoil I had suffered through all those hours of trying to get back to my kitchen to cook that meal for that houseful of guests. 

Knowing it was late, I rushed to the kitchen, and, in my haste, forgot to turn on Mr. Coffee.  

That's where I saw Bill who had been up long enough to take the dogs out for their morning business and to stoke up the fire. 

He told me that he had also performed one more early morning, unplanned duty.  

Upon waking, he had rushed to the living room to make sure that it was, indeed, a disturbing dream and that, in reality,  Liam had NOT devoured a 6 by 6-in square from dead center in the living room carpet. 

Liam was innocent; after all, how could he have done that during the night with all those people walking through our house?  

Besides, he spent the night in his crate bed in the garage. 

I'm guessing that, all in all,  it must have been an unsettled night here at the Lovestead, but with the light of day and with both of us waking from deep  but busy slumbers, no such disasters occurred overnight. 

Thank God!

And, for those of you who were invited to the party or NOT, no worries.  Next time, I'll have a back-up plan, lest I be lured away from the kitchen by an overflow of humanity. 

You will be fed.  

And, if you feel as if you were left off the guest list, you're probably lucky!

Happy Tuesday.  Bon Appetite!