akirlu | Aftermath Among the Beer Bottles (Reply)

kateyule safely seen off on the road home, after a very nice breakfast at Wild Wheat with

scarlettina, and after a small expotition up the hill to Taste of Europe/Valley Harvest. Everyone was suitably impressed with the wide variety of weird and unfamiliar Eastern European groceries, and there were the usual pauses were everyone stood gazing up at some brightly-colored box or jar while trying to sound out the Cyrillic. I don't know how the owners of Taste of Europe feel about our treating their store as a tourist destination to take out-of-towners to, especially since there's always a lot of excited fannish exclaiming up and down the aisles as new discoveries are made, but I'm hoping the purchasing of products assuages any sting there might be.

I'm not fully convinced that our house really is big enough for a Clarion party, but, still and all, last night seems to have gone off quite well. Everyone seemed to have a good time and we -- inevitably -- wound up with more alcohol at the end than at the beginning. But don't let anyone kid you; a mid-season Clarion Party is Much Bigger than a winter-season Vanguard. I was constantly worrying about the insufficient seating, but everyone seemed quite content to squeeze into the kitchen doorway. And so we have discovered a weird new metric of party success: when you're finding that the shortest distance between the kitchen and the living room is by way of the side yard, you've got a successful party on your hands.

Man, am I tired though. But the upside of a Friday party is, once it's over, you still have the whole weekend to recover. So that's me, trundling down the hill to get flowers at the farmers' market...