The Gathering: a First for the Author

I rent a small-ass place, a 2-storey apartment in the old residential area of Makati. For entertainment, I have this small, for-kitchen-sized, thirteen-glorious-inches of cathode-ray-transmitting cable-hooked TV that I won from a raffle last year. It is propped on a stand facing a decent living room with a couch and throw pillows. I have a dining table with chairs and a fairly workable kitchen with a space-saving single-burner stove, a small oven, and an array of other necessary kitchen stuff and utensils. The house is not something I could have people drop their jaws at in awe which is why I never considered inviting anybody over. Ever.

My dilemma started about a month ago when even I surprised myself on agreeing to host something for friends for a change-of-venue in the stead of our already sort-of-a-ritual drinking weekender in Cable Car along Pasay Road. Thing is, I wasn’t ready. Sure, I myself have been invited to intimate get-togethers in various friends’ houses to save my social life and own-home-party-hosting eventualities but I’m just not prepared for this huge leap in showing other people how independently kick-ass I am in managing it on my own so far. See, I have this fear of being judged and told that my idea and way of a sovereign lifestyle sucks. I mean, I had been living this way for so long and an in-my-face feedback about it being a sham could just be irreversibly unbearable for my deflated, albeit healthy-looking-because-I-am-a-good-actor-like-that, ego. I could pull off living like a slob owing to my younger-than-my-age appearance, with special commendations to the genes of my parentals’ lineage of immortals, but my would-be guests actually know my age and they have a hint of how much I earn (or so they think. Hah!) that I have no choice but shape up and get myself ready for what I foresee to be a momentous milestone in my version of a parody of a gloomorous life. Pun intended on the "gloom."

About a week before the event, I started considering what things to do and buy. Knowing the personalities of the people coming over, they'd be happy to just crash and have booze coupled with something to munch, or make that something to shove in their mouths at every fraction of a twelfth of an hour.

As to what to serve, good thing my good friend Ainna brought me lunch at the start of that same week and, after tasting her delectable pasta sauce, a flash of genius made me want to try replicating her easy-to-prepare, high-quality, gourmet Italian creation. That and sausages because everybody loves good sausages and Santi’s have just the thing to fulfill this aspect of my idea of a feast. I eventually planed on getting herbs, which will, from that fateful night onwards, be labeled "kick-ass herbs" after it brought them otherwise ordinary olive oil sautéed sausages to a god-like state in the sausage-dish preparation branch of culinary science. Also, button potatoes. And young corn and mushrooms.

Night came and the visitors arrive. Dawn rose and they're still there. Were it not for the cramped space and lack of sleeping areas, I'd have felt confident that they all had a great time. Up to now, I think they were just polite in saying they did.

Now that I'm experienced to this sort of hosting bit, I think I'll get a hang of the next time which I hope could be as or even more enjoyable than my first.

Labels: Lifestyle

posted by Fritz @ 6:46 AM