end of summer drinks.

On Friday night, I invited some friends over for a drink, which ended up being really great. The cleaning lady cancelled AGAIN so I ended up having to clean the house at the last minute. Not that it was so bad but I kind had other things to do. In the end, I don't know what I would have done with myself if I had had more time free. I went to the shops, made the food, cleaned the house, fed the baby, took a shower and did my hair and make-up, and even did an Ipod playlist before the first guests arrived. It was the best organized party I've done since Ella entered the mix.
To sort of celebrate/commiserate the end of summer I had bought some gorgeous things from the market. There were really pretty little yellow cherry tomatoes (everyone kept asking if I grew them myself. I think I am getting a bad reputation as an overachiever...) , some little purple figs that I served with chevre. The last of the summers apricots with Bleu de Bresse. Just as a side note, they would have been better with a stronger blue cheese, in my opinion. Maybe even a gorgonzola. I just thought the Bleu de Bresse was a bit fade. There was a plate or rosette saucisson, smoked salmon, my famous green olive tapenade, and a beautiful peach frangipane tart. The tart was nothing special but since the yellow peaches were perfect it made all the difference. And all this washed down with buckets of Rose Champagne. Luckily, Friday was sunny and warm, for once, and we managed to open all the windows and people sat on the balcony smoking. All the right ingredients.
Had one disappointment - Since I had Aly staying here for a few days, he asked if he could invite a friend of his over. He thought it was someone that I would love and I have to say that his description really piqued my curiosity. He said she was minor French nobility, looked like a transvestite, and loved Opera. Maybe it was Marion James?!! Anyways, she didn't show but just about everyone else made it. We ended up being about 17 plus 3 babies. I am getting sort of immune to the chaos that toddlers bring to any gathering, I guess, because I hardly noticed them running around. Their presence was more obvious when I sneaked across the living room at 5 am to put Ella back to sleep and my feet were covered in potato chip crumbs. Quite stupidly I set a bowl out on the coffee table and they were apparently used as confetti by the three girls.
Can't say that I would have been in a better mood if the floor had been spotless. I was so hung over that I could barely stand up straight and totally exhausted since Ella had pulled the same trick the day before, shouting (maybe screaming would be more accurate? Howling? Attempting to raise the dead? hard call) to get out of bed before dawn. I didn't want to wake our house guests so I wobbled around the living room for an hour, going in every 5 minutes or so to whisper forcefully "Back to sleep! Its not morning yet". Finally having given her a bottle, some sleeping medicine, some Advil, and changed her diaper to cover all possible irritations, she fell back to sleep until 10. It wasn't a total waste of time, in any case. I managed to get about a liter of water down and take 2 aspirins, which probably did loads to help me make it through Sat afternoon.
Naturally, I was invited over to a friends for a party the one night that I seriously could not imagine dragging myself of the sofa. My philosophy on post-baby social life is go everywhere you are invited so that people don't forget about you, thinking you fell in the Great Abyss of Parenthood. Seriously though, I had my weekend full of fun already and Season One Lost DVD's sitting temptingly on the table. There was no contest. I had my jammies on by 9 and was dreaming frantic dreams of jungle escapes by 11:30.