The Kenmore will be ok.

It probably only needs a new needle. Silly me, thinking I could sew through denim with a dull needle. What am I sewing through denim for, you ask? Wouldn't you like to know. I plan to show you on the impending post 325.

We are hosting a BBQ tomorrow. Those of you who knew me in my former lives might not find this that surprising, since I used to be quite a socialite (I had 10 or 12 friends in my attic bachelor suite appartment for Thanksgiving dinner the year I was married in Thunder Bay, and one year I fed all Jeremy Smyth's hungry eccentric bachelor friends Thanksgiving dinner, plus two other families). But since we have moved here, we have not really entertained very much. This is partially because Andrew was not the sort of baby or toddler who really made it easy to have people over, partially because I've been remiss in keeping the house in any semblance of order and so Dave doesn't like people to see the mess, and partially because we've just been too worn out from having to do pastoral and pastoral family type visits all the time, and I do eccentric meal nights with the youth group once every month or two, so I get my mass scale cooking bug satiated. I think the last party we had was having the Hetkes for Christmas, and before that it was Andrew's birthday in September.

The rules of entertaining are really different here than they are in B.C. Out on the West Coast, if someone tells you to come at 6, you show up around 6:15 and expect to be given an appetizer and wine and chat with them while they finish cooking, then eat around 6:45 or 7ish. Food was often experimental or ethnic (well, my friends were all from elsewhere, so my apple pie was ethnic to them). Since most of my friends were still childless or in the small house or condo - no furniture stage, seating tended to be of the informal food balanced on your lap with your drink on the window sill behind you variety. There would be one dessert that was consumed with strong coffee, but often followed with more wine. These gatherings would go late into the night, with rousing or mellow discussions of ideas, music, literature or just talking about our lives now and in the past.

In this part of Saskatchewan, I have found that if someone tells you to be there at 6, you had better show up at 5:50 because dinner will be on the table at 6 and cold at 6:15. You wait until you are formally seated, and generally eat your roast meat, potatoes, salad and two veg meal. This is followed by a dessert and dainties (squares and cookies and the like) and coffee. The main topics of conversation (since most people have known one another for their whole life) is the weather, the crops, and your family. Or the good joke so and so told you last week or last year or a decade ago. Given, most of the people I've visited who are from here are older, or have never really lived anywhere else, so their expectations and life experience are different than that of my friends on the coast. But it really is a different mindset, even with younger folk. You just don't talk about religion, politics or anything controversial. Its not really done.

In any case, the apple blossoms are coming out and Dave's birthday is coming up and we want to start building in to some of the young famililies in our church, so tomorrow is the day. The house is tidy, the lawn is mowed and I've baked a cake so we can sing happy birthday to Dave, and the groceries are all bought. We've only had one ÿes" out of the six families we invited, but we've had three non-responses. So we shall see how it goes. I will probably make a mess of it again, but perhaps I will get it sort of right this time. Wish me luck.