PAR-TAY* . . .

C had his mega-BBQ-blowout on Saturday, and it was a blast.

We hooked in M through a web-cam at the hospital, and all of us instant-messengered with her throughout the day and night -- poor woman was exhausted from the sheer multi-tasking involved . . . never mind that she's pregnant with twins!

Highlights:

Their House. C & M worked really hard on their house, transforming it from a "cozy" little cape to a magnificent and comfortable home. All of us ladies drool over the kitchen when we go over there, though there are other cool things to admire too . . . but the kitchen really is the best part. I love doing dishes in their sink. I love doing dishes anywhere, but particularly in their sink. They have a really nice sink.

The Food. The spread included all manner of Filipino, Korean and American food, and as expected, we started eating at 12:30pm and kept going until the last of us left at around midnight. Oy. And there's something very strangely satisfying about BBQ fare. A hotdog anywhere else (other than the streets of NY and Yankee Stadium) is just a hotdog, but throw it on the grill and call it a BBQ -- all of a sudden, it's so delicious, I have to have three. Leave food sitting out for seven hours anywhere else and it's the grossest thing you could ever imagine, but slap it on some tables and rally a bunch of friends -- all of a sudden, you're picking through the browned and oxygenated crust to get to the warm pasta salad underneath like it's gold. Very weird. But very tasty.

Alpha-Males. The gentlemen participated in a loosely-organized 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Banana, JKo and I observed this event, along with our webcam pals, Soy and M. Had we been so inclined (and sober), we probably could have thrown together a neat little sociological dissertation on the tournament, but barring that, I offer the following thesis: among men, there is no such thing as a "casual" game of ball. There's too much testosterone, it's too hot, and there is too wide a range of the cast of characters for a ball game to really be casual. When you have I Think I Know Everything About Everything (Including Sports, Even Though I Can't Really Play Very Well) Man guarding I Have A Chip On My Shoulder About Being Told How To Play Ball Man, who's passing to I'm Just A Spazz Who Wants To Play Ball Man, who's being blocked by I'm Just One Big Mass Of Man And You Can't Get Past Me In A Million Years Man, who takes down I Don't Even Know Who You Are But I'll Elbow Your Face Man, but not before I'm Way Younger Than All Of You And Can Make All My Shots Man/Boy puts in a sweet long shot, tempers are bound to flare and true natures are bound to roar to the surface. Oh, boy. Why can't they just sit around and gossip like us genteel ladies? (I am conveniently forgetting us slouching on the couch, resting bottles of Sam Adams' Summer Ale on our bellies, with our legs hanging wide open because we're too full to sit up properly.)

Cute Boyz. You know they're cute when even a newly-married, just returned from her honeymoon JKo gives two enthusiastic thumbs-up and a double eye-brow waggle to each of them. There was The Grill Man, The Brother and The Artiste Who Knows Everything (Or Thinks He Does). The "Thinks He Does" part became a little tiresome during a sleepy game of late-night Cranium, but otherwise, all systems were go. We had enough eye candy to last us the whole day! All that male objectification was exhausting . . .

*M. There were technical difficulties. Our web-cam froze; then her web-cam froze; then ours froze again. We passed the phone around to everyone who wanted to talk to M, taking her on a nonsensical wild cyber-ride around her front lawn. We arranged random people in front of the camera, so she could see their shaky, time-delayed images grinning monstrously back at her. The quiz show that C had so painstakingly prepared to honor M was butchered beyond recognition. We couldn't even find her preferred ice cream flavor in the store to send down to her with the BBQ food we had packed!!! But we had her with us to the bitter end, and so we discovered that it's not just a trite, wishful thing to say that M was with us in spirit. Had we not had her disjointedly twinkling web-eye keeping watch over us, the BBQ would have been very boring indeed . . .

Reading: John Adams, by David McCullough
Listening to: Mile High Live, by The Freddy Jones Band