Florida : The dinner party

Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009-11:53 am
If patience is a virtue, then bring me a large bottle of it, with a twist, please.

6:00 p.m. It was dinner party night at the condo. It was a reality show waiting to happen.

It was a collective effort, with my dad and I making dinner for the 5 of us plus 8 couples from the complex.

The food was almost ready. People started to arrive, giving twin kisses on each cheek.

There was one man who always seems to "miss" the cheek and kisses me on the lips. I said " Okay, rule number one: unless you're served in a frosted glass, never come within four feet of my lips"!!!

A woman arrived and said "You remember me dear? We met last year. I'm Judyann Lowenstien. Capitol J , no space, lowercase ANN. no "E". mmmmm-k? "

I'm thinking :"I have no idea of what you just said!"

Everyone was having cocktails and talking at once, with lots of loud pointless laughter. I started to set the table but I was stopped in my tracks by J. She always seems to be exerting an undue influence on my life, and tonight was no exception. She wanted me to put all those dishes away and use disposable paper goods "to save time cleaning up".

In a age of information permanence, where someone can find out every fact about you and every web site you have ever visited, and bust into your accounts just from a carelessly discarded visa bill...I have come to like disposable things. But not when it comes to serving a meal . J's real motive for the use of paper plates was not to shorten the clean up, because she does not participate in the clean up. ( She does however observe it, criticize it, and complain about the way it is done.) I suspected the real motive was she simply does not have faith in my dishwasher loading technique with place setting for 13. I would have to live with the paper plates, but if she pulled out a Box-O-Wine and paper cups for the drinks, I was going to be very dismayed.

6:30 p.m. I smiled a sycophantic smile and refilled my wine glass. I feel bad saying this, but a stiff glass of something alcoholic is necessary to make this crowd more bearable. Make that two .

O.K. three drinks, tops.
I don't usually drink to excess. Full blown alcoholism is frowned upon these days, even at this complex, but after J downed 3 vodka and tonics and lost her overbearing micro-managing edge, the party suddenly took on a Kennedy administration insouciance.

(Honestly, my dad must have gotten a very poor prognosis from the palimony attorney 2 years ago...But, of course, I am out of line.)

There was no white wine so I was drinking red and with every sip, I hoped I did not spill it any of it on the light colored furniture.

There are really 3 stages to any dinner party.

~~~The point at which no one can be convinced to stop yapping about how intelligent and unique they are and go in to the dining room and sit down .

~~~The stage when dinner is actually being eaten, while everyone at the table is peering around a ridiculously tall floral centerpiece, causing wine to spill on the rug and clothes.

~~~~~ The stage at which no one can be convinced to get up and go home,despite the hosts are slumped in an armchair, nodding off. down .

There were a few sub-stages and Florida-specific things that I observed this night:

"THE LOOK"

The faces had an unsentimental neutrality, like a weather-worn landscape in the erosion of time.

(Maybe that is a clear advantage of being in the over-55 community; I am the 'fairest of them all'. I know it is comparing apples and oranges, and that mature older people have a different kind of attractiveness. I also know that once I have started with fruit metaphors , the point I was making has lost a lot a value.)

The men had harsh peeling reddish tans that usually come from too much sailing and golfing in the scorching sun. It is also from drinking so much that all the blood vessels have burst in their face. One of them had on a ring with a giant seal that looked like it had been snitched from the Vatican and a huge gold chain. It might have been a combo of jewelry and sex game equipment.

( There is a lot of vanity in Florida. I saw a lot of ads for teeth bleaching , laser hair removal for men and ads for Viagra. It is nice to think that there are fewer hairy backs, whiter teeth and more erections among the men of Boca , but it is an unnecessary level of vanity for these older gentlemen, whose pastel-colored tropical weight jackets had lapels as wide as the Panama canal , circa 1977.)

Women's fashion in Florida is a true mystery.
Bright citrus fruit prints and large floral patterns, festooned capri pants so tight that they appear ready to explode from fabric strain. They wear over sized costume jewelry that could be used as a weapon. One should not be wearing capri pants, if the waist measurement is larger in circumference than the diagonal measurement of the idiotically over sized straw purse they are carrying. It is just not right! They all wore a shiny fake tan "glowing" make-up that is supposed to make the skin look "dewy" but actually made them look like they needed an astringent. The hair begged the question: Honey, who jiffy-popped your head?"

I was not one to talk that night about fashion. I had received a pair of bright Lime green pants from J. that were so vivid that my hair hurt. I wore them so I would not seem blatantly discourteous. They were not the nice shade of preppy LaCoste green that is seen on a Senator's Polo shirt in Nantucket with a starlet. This was the shade of green that says "stock boy uniform at a second rate golf pro shop in Ohio". I could only wish I was in Ohio.

Everyone loved my verdant look! What's to account for people's taste? Maybe the years of sitting in hot retina scorching sun and the ravishes of aging had made half of them color blind.

The ability to perceive color is held by all animals that rely on fruit and flora in the diet. It is a Darwinian survival tool. Color perception at this party indicated that the evolutionary clock had stood still. I have read that humans , even when partially color blind, can still see 10 different shades of green brown and tan. (a distinct advantage if one is stalking reptilian prey in the Everglades, or entering the first floor of Brooks Brothers.)

"The CONVERSATION":

One can never underestimate the importance of communication skills. I'll be immodest here - the cocktail party conversation is one of my great gifts, but I was out of my league here.

7:00 p.m. The topics ranged from menopause to prostrate problems, incontinence, to gossip about other neighbors. When they began to talk about the latest condo association issues it took on the uber-hysteria of of post menopausal women in Freud's lesser case studies.

"That loathsome tenant in 2B was seen in the club house without shoes"... "Someone planted flowers that were growing over the line of the common ground and they must be removed!! "...I thought to myself, They are flowers people, not a nude statue for Lord's sake!

(MERCIFULLY I did NOT hear the following: "Who was that scandalous hussy with her blouse on inside out , sneaking back into the complex, carrying her shoes at 2 in the morning? It looked a little like... YOUR daughter! Oh, You didn't know she has been out every night till 2 a.m.? What ARE you , HEADLESS?" ) .

They complained that the owners who rented out thier place had retruned to use the pool, thus there were too many children in there at once. The woman shrieked: "Good Lord. I can't believe it. I may as well be at a public pool. Why doesn't somebody just pee directly on me?" (don't tempt me.).

They regurgitated every bit of psychobabble that they had seen on Dr. Phil. They talked diets, backaches, and comparing lists of medications everyone is on and their costs in encyclopedic detail. They blared out the net worth and social stratification of their offspring. >

One guy said " I have a 'support our troops' bumper sticker on the Chevyy Tahoe. How much more can one man give?"

~~~~~ Young people can communicate almost entirely by using a few with-it phrases and nouns.

oh, man.

cool,

like.

oh, wow.

bitchin'.

ya know.

duh,

really.

du-u-u-de,

no duh.

how cool is that?

give me a break.

That sucks

Now that I am part of the middle aged crowd , the vocabulary-challenged idioms of youth have been replaced by conversations peppered with :

"I couldn't believe it!"

"you DID?".

"How Fabulous!"

"Oy!".

"She didn't! ".

"oh my Gawd!",

"I thought I would DIE!".

"Oh, how awful",

"have a nice day".

"is it hot/cold/windy/damp enough for you?"

"but at the end of the day"...

"the bottom line is.." ~~~~~~

Anything was better than any real conversations in which I may have been asked (again) "Still alone, dear"? "Are you out there looking?" "Why not try online dating". "You are not a spring chicken anymore. One day after you go through "the change" and that flat stomach of yours is going to stick out."

7:30 p.m. At least the food was fantastic. The surroundings made you feel like you were actually in an Italian restaurant . The decor of my parent's condo is full of French Provincial furniture and paintings with weeping angels and shrouded virgins in frames so ornate that they looked like they had been stolen from the palace of Versailles. There are huge ostentatious statues and lamps with plastic covered lampshades . Every nick-nack has been carefully planned with size and color in mind.

There is a peach colored sectional couch.... I swear that I had nothing to do with the red wine that landed on the cushion. My proximity to the stain and reports of my wild hand movements are purely circumstantial. The fact that there was also a red wine stain in the same spatter pattern on my green pants was purely coincidental. I thought of leaving the state before the end of the party, but that would incriminate me.(plus I'd miss out on my secret late night date.) I toyed with the idea of dousing the whole thing in more wine and pretend it had always a been that color. I would not rule it out except, with my luck I'd be caught on some video security cam, ..imagine the scandal. I now vow to keep a Clorox bleach stick with me at all gatherings.

There are lies of omission, there are white lies, and many shades of grey lies, all without singular moral clarity. I didn't admit to anything. I now have a reason to ditch the green pants to destroy the peripheral evidence. 8:30 p.m. I cleaned up the kitchen, while they had dessert and coffee. The men went outside and talked on the porch. The women sat at the dining room table. J. fell asleep on the couch.

It was reminiscent of Victorian times, when after dinner, the men would retreat to the billiard room, and the ladies went to the parlor. In modern times couples are not usually separated after dinner. (it is , however, common to be separated after a 20 year supposedly happy marriage) 9:15 p.m. Finally! Everyone is gone, my parents are upstairs , the kids are asleep and I have changed out of the green pants . It was almost time. 9:30 p.m. My cell phone rang and I scandelously slipped out the door.

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