Thursday, February 21, 2008

Lost Weekend

It wasn't really lost, per se. I've had true lost weekends. This last one was more of a: I'm not doing anything I don't want to do. No paddling. No training. No prepping for Swamp Romp.

I was busy enough. Did a deep cleaning, which I needed to do. I shopped for Friday's carb loading dinner. And I went to Big Tom's party. The last took up more prep time than it should have. I can find a crowd for a night of dancing in half a dozen of the world's great cities ... yet could barely manage it in my own home town. My crew came together and fell apart. One girl dropped when she learned there wouldn't be Booty House. Which: there will never be "booty house" at any party I go to. I'm not that white. A few others just faded out. Some of the usual suspects predicted it would be a waste of time. In the end, it was just David and I.

And four to five hundred people. That was a nice surprise. It was a good, happy crowd. It was nice to dance again in my own town, without having to get on a plane.

And yet ... I was ready to go until dawn. By 2:30 the dance floor was empty. The DJ, Cary Stringfellow, was strong for awhile. He made a fatal mistake, though, of going to hard at the wrong time. I took a break - the music didn't sound right to me. Maybe it was too early to go hard. Maybe the sound system couldn't handle it. Maybe I just wasn't wasted enough. Either way, I started to fade.

As did everyone else. People took cigarette breaks and never returned, they sat down on the couch and never got up. A few left, then more followed. The party went from rocking to dead in less than fifteen minutes. I think the DJ realized his mistake and went back to happy music, but it was too late. There was no longer critical mass. I went back to the dancefloor - and I could name every one of the other four groups out there. Sure we were the diehards, but we weren't enough to resurrect the party.

It was too bad, though I hope it went well enough we'll get more. For me it was only a warm up for Palm Springs, anyway. That is pretty much guaranteed to be non-stop fun.

Hit the gym hard twice since, I'm up to 750 crunches a set, and went running twice. I still hate running, but don't want to shame myself in this weekend's Swamp Romp. And I need to be buff for PS.

At the moment I'm hot and stinky form being in the kitchen all evening. I thought I took notes last year when I cooked, but I can't find them, so I'm guessing at quantities. This year I'll do better, and post the recipes & how much was left over. I did the bulk of the cooking tonight (though just realized I forgot a few things & will need to make them up tomorrow). The menu, for 30 Rompers:

Heuvos Rellenos de Atun - 30 eggs
Cochinita Pibil - 15# pork shoulder
Andalusian Salad - 5 c rice, 5 c soybeans
Colcannon - 10# potatoes
Melon - 4 honeydew & half a bottle of honey liqueur

notes: The eggs went, and the pork was good the next day at the race. Both were the right amounts. I had twice as much potatoes and melon as needed. Johnny brought bread, and that was a needed addition. The soybeans took forever to cook & I ended up not even using them. People liked the rice salad, though I thought it was just ok. People didn't drink much - only two of the eight bottles of wine.

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