My Only New Year’s Resolution is to Stop Eating 9,000 Calories a Day
Posted by Moose on January 2nd, 2008. Filed under: Tis the Season.New Year’s Eve was a feast of greenery. Because eating greens on New Year’s brings you luck. And MONEY. So Jemima tossed three pounds of collard greens into the stew and I made the largest spinach salad ever hefted onto a dinner table. (If you’re worried about this excess of healthy veggies, allow me to assure you that the spinach was drenched in bacon grease.)
I expect the first in a steady stream of large checks to hit my mailbox tomorrow. (Glances significantly in the direction of the leftover spinach.) Incidentally, all my current goals revolve around work and money (i.e. getting some). Apparently, I have no desire to be a better person.
That said, I am trying to be more conscious of my…idiosyncrasies. I figure it’s the least I can do for those who find themselves in my company for any length of time. (Including you! And how are you doing? Good? You want more pictures of the dog? Excellent.) New Year’s Eve highlighted some of my entertaining tendencies. Entertaining as in “having people over”, as opposed to “inspiring hearty guffaws”. Unless you find it entertaining that I used an entire pound of butter that day.
Idiosyncrasy No. 347: I tend to go overboard. I made cookies and banana bread and bought ice cream. Even though Sean was BRINGING DESSERT. I thought, “What if he doesn’t have time to pick something up? Or the stores are closed? Or a rabid badger rips the box from his hands and scampers under a bus? IT COULD HAPPEN. Best be prepared.” So I mashed some bananas up with the day’s fourth stick of butter.
Our party plan could best be described as last minute, involving little more than Jemima’s soup and my house. As we said our goodbyes on the phone, Jemima told me not to clean. I FULLY INTENDED to obey her directive and not stir from the couch until it was time to let them in. This resolution lasted a whole thirty minutes before I was creeping through the house and tidying. Within another hour I was sweeping and tossing towels in the washer. Then I gave up and started rearranging the furniture.
I just can’t help myself. I have to wash the baseboards with vinegar, and I have to provide three types of hors d’oeuvres and four types of dessert. Some people call this uptight. I call it being a good hostess.
My wine glass polishing and candle organizing ceased only when they arrived, bringing dessert, stew, a delightfully dumpy dog, and much good cheer. After several mugs of mulled wine, I stopped fretting about the cheese arrangement.
By the time we learned that Dick Clark is still alive and fresh from eleven months of marinating in formaldehyde, I was so relaxed (ahem) I tipped over. I reached for the bowl of jelly beans and just…tipped. I may have sat for a few minutes with my face pressed into the arm of the couch, wondering where in god’s name I was and why there was a woman wearing gold lame spats on my television. We collectively realized our advanced age when not a single person in the room knew who this girl was or why she was wearing a matching gold jacket. Dick Clark may have known, but his puppeteer was taking a coffee break. (Jokes aside, Dick Clark is amazing. Especially in those shiny lapels.)
It was just the evening one might wish for, full of food, friends, booze, and perfectly arranged cheese.
Happy (Belated) New Year! I hope you and yours had a lovely eve, and that it somehow included a pound of butter.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 7:07 am
While New Year’s Eve itself didn’t include a pound of butter, the week leading up to it certainly did. Two, in fact. Thus the new gym membership.
Poor Dick. How many more years do you think he’ll rally for?
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:28 am
Not sure about the butter, but my chicken pasanda was very nice. As a treat the waiter gave me free Bailey’s. And served it up with a bendy straw which amused me so much I had to take a picture…or two…Which amused our friend greatly. Are my picture snapping inclinations really that odd?? Maybe I was really snockered. It was the first alcohol I had drank in a long time…
Happy New Year! I miss you already.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 am
My new year’s resolution is to have you bring your cooling ingredients and cleaning supplies to my house and use them. I satisfy your neuroses, you indulge my laziness, everyone wins.
P.S. Don’t forget the mulled wine.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:10 am
It is for those reasons that I find entertaining extremely stressful. I like the idea of it. But in reality, I’m too clenchy.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 am
I just learned of the whole eating greens = good luck idea yesterday. I went home and the only thing I could find was a green bottle of Glenlivet. I wonder if that would count… But I do understand the cleaning compulsion. When I learned I had friends coming after Christmas, I found myself dusting the inside of my drawers and behind the oven. Why were my friends going to be using a flashlight in either of these areas? I don’t know, but I was prepared. It’s not neuroses, it’s a lively character trait – right?
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I’m hungry just reading this post. As if seeing the banner on your page doesn’t have the same effect every time I visit your site.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I am a crazy hostess. Oh, let’s invite so-and-so over to eat appies. Five hours of insane prep later…
I can relate, is what I am sayin’
Happy New Year!
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Mulled wine! That’s what I should have had!!! (Wine + club soda + Red Bull with Jager = grumpy me until 4:30am when I finally managed to go to sleep.)
Check on the pound of butter. I went through that making cookies. We also had plenty of fried things in preparation for the beginning of the year diet.
What is this washing baseboards with vinegar? People wash baseboards? (I kid, I kid.) But seriously, why vinegar?
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Okay, and this may just be me, but hearing the rabid badger story would make not having dessert TOTALLY WORTH IT.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Yea, why vinegar on the baseboards? I don’t think I ever heard this tip from Martha Stewart?? Oh. Maybe that’s ’cause I don’t watch her shows. Or read her mags. But I do read YOU, Moose. So, keep it coming-butter, vinegar, mulled wine and all!
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Jhianna and Belinda: Here is where I have to admit that I LIED. I have never used vinegar on my floors. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did anything more ambitious than wipe up a particularly large red wine stain.
However, vinegar is good for floors. I wrote a little piece of Vital Juice Daily (here, if you’re interested) with all sorts of cleaning tips that I’ve never used.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I pondered the whole Dick Clark thing, too, over at my blog. I also collected a bunch of media mentions that were not too kind about his performance on New Year’s Eve.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Mmmmm, banana bread…and spinach in bacon grease….
We had blackeyed peas and cabbage for luck or wealth or health or some of the above, but your menu sounds tastier!
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
“I expect the first in a steady stream of large checks to hit my mailbox tomorrow”
After that first paragraph about “three pounds of collard greens” and “the largest spinach salad” AND bacon grease, I read the next as symbolic/metaphoric code for long visits to the powder room, the ‘mailbox’ being the toilet bowl, LOL!
January 4th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I am EXACTLY THE SAME WAY when I’m having company. Doesn’t everyone scrub their tiles with a toothbrush just in case someone should peek into the bathtub? I mean, come on! That’s just good sense.
Happy New Year, Moose!!
January 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
mmm…9,000 calories…
January 5th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Happy New Year Moose! May your 2008 be rich with colorful life experiences… and cash.
January 7th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I really hope that losing my wallet at Christmas was not an indication of financial wellbeing for the coming year. However, it was a pretty significant summation of 2007. If it was indeed stolen, the poor bastard who took it will starve to death.
Where do you think they keep Dick Clark’s pickling jar? Maybe we can press our noses to the glass and see where the puppeteer puts his hand.