The social calendar

I had quite the eventful weekend. I hosted a wine tasting party at my moderately tiny apartment on Friday night. (It was sort of like a Pampered Chef party, but with wine!) I was pretty excited at the prospect of making lots of appetizers and desserts to go with the wine; I like to be creative in the kitchen. And I think the food went over pretty well! I made quite the spread. I'm not sure what my friends really thought of the wine tasting, though. They said they liked it, but you never know. Sometimes I think your friends are the least honest people around, what with the sparing of your feelings and all. Regardless, I very much enjoyed the wines and spent probably too much on restocking my own wine cabinet.

I was invited to a dinner party by one of the faculty members in my department for Saturday night. Up until that point, I was pretty sure he really disliked me. He didn't really speak to or acknowledge me all that often, and when he did it was usually something critical. In addition, he is a very political guy; when he tries to turn on the charm, you can be almost assured you have something that he wants. So I was rather thrown by the invitation. I couldn't imagine why he would want me of all people at his home, nor could I figure out what it was that he really wanted from me. To top it all off, the guest list appeared to be me and three couples. (I am S.O.-less, in case that part wasn't clear).

Turns out, I was rather wrong about the whole thing. He didn't want anything from me and it turned out to be a rather pleasant evening! There were a few awkward moments in the conversation, but I expected nothing less from a roomful of astronomers and their spouses. :) All in all, I now feel like I really need to rethink my opinion of the host. (Then again, he could help his case significantly if he didn't intentionally look away from me when walking past me on campus).

I also dogsat this weekend. But that experience requires an entire post of its own after a sufficient recovery period.