Delicious Dinner Disaster with Daphne and Lori

Daphne and Lori were still in town. Daphne, Lori and I were barely recovering from our Rager the night before. We spent all morning cleaning, then went to the weirdest breakfast experience in the world.

At breakfast, the waitress spilled all of our meals on the way out to bring them to us, a woman asked us if we would watch her children (sitting in her running car out front) while she peed (I thought we were on hidden camera...it was bizarre) and people kept on taking pictures of this dog tied to the front of the restaurant with the longest tongue I have ever seen in my life.

At noon, I get a call from my 80 year-old quasi-weekend boss...he and his wife kind of invited themselves down to my beach house for dinner. At one, we head to the grocery store to get all of the ingredients for our elaborate dinner that we were frantically putting together for the dinner arrivals. The menu: peppercorn pork tenderloin with sweet and sour sauce (from scratch), gourmet mac and cheese, green beans, and chocolate-oreo-coffee-heathbar ice cream pie.

Lori is the gourmand, and I only half believe her because she lives with my sister, Daphne, who likes to take the cheese off of her pizza and then dip it in marinara. Me, I'm a pretty good cook, but also extremely messy and a procrastinator...huh, fit my personality much? Daphne can cook really well, but doesn't like cheese...which poses a problem when mac & cheese is part of the main course.

Jim had just gotten home from his mini-vacation and Chad was working on his baby (an old fixer-upper car). Jim met my sister and then went straight to take a nap. Chad, after being covered in grease, decides we need to wash off the porch if we are having dinner guests. I told both of my roommates that they HAD to come to dinner because they would have a great time, but they were both trying to get out of it and not looking forward to it at all.

The boss calls to tell me he is on my way, but his wife should be there sooner...and I start panicking. The meat is not on the grill, the mac & cheese is not in the oven, the green beans haven't been cleaned, and the dessert was not totally frozen. Not to mention, we didn't have enough wine in the house. I also didn't realize they would be taking separate cars and I only had 1 parking spot available for them. Parking is tough on the weekends near the beach.

The boss's wife arrives 20 minutes early with a plant that looked like it was headed for a funeral. She brings one bottle of wine. Chad, in his car/grease clothes volunteers to follow us in Jim's car in order to find her parking about 2 miles away.

We get back to the house and Chad lights the grill. I put the meat on while Daphne is showering. Chad goes to shower. I wake Jim up. The Boss arrives. The sweet and sour sauce scarily looks like it has chunks of white chocolate in it. The Boss forgets to bring the 2 bottles of wine he promised - his wife is mad. Daphne and Lori walk to the liquor store for a couple more bottles. Jim walks to the Boss's wife car to get a bottle of wine out of her car. I entertain the Boss and the wife with the wine we have when Chad comes out of his room.

"Boss, Boss's wife, nice to meet you. Clumsy, two questions for you. Where are Daphne, Lori and Jim...and who's watching the meat?"

"S%^&!"

Chad saves the day on the pork. I remake the sauce. Wine arrives and life is good. Daphne and Lori pull off the rest of the meal without a flaw. We spend time on the porch eating, talking and laughing. Five hours and five bottles of wine later, the Boss and his wife have left and the five of us are laughing hysterically about the night and the Rager we had the night before. Chad puts on a slide show of pictures on his flat screen and we were going through all of the events.

Jim says, "Clumsy, we have to take Daphne and Lori out on the town. They've been in town two nights and haven't seen anything but our apartment!"

So, Jim, Daphne, Lori and I head to the bar....

...To be continued.