Aside from our wedding day which was obviously the most important day of the week, David and I each had our “pet” events. The ball was mine. I figure that it will take at least a few years of throwing balls before I get it down to a science. According to many, our first attempt was a great success. To an exhausted and somewhat frazzled Faye, it could have been better. This is the downside of having high standards. Ah well, if it had been perfect I wouldn’t have anything to look forward to in future years. Often times when music is playing I’m the last one on the dance floor. By the time Friday night rolled around I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even finish the polka that Scott and I had promised to each other. Lucky for me I’ve got the rest of my life to dance the polka and I plan to do just that!
Enough kvetching, here are the highlights in order of occurrence:
- The amazing set-up crew, got into the space and got busy. For one hour of work and a fair amount of confusion, they did an amazing job.
- Our excellent DJ St. Patrick, honored our wishes and did an fabulous job of facilitating what I hope everybody thought was a fun evening of dance. I was so grateful for his efforts!
- Our super with-it staff of 5 young gals that Jan found for us. This was their first foray into catering and I think that they did an excellent job. Jan and Joyce did an amazing job of managing the kitchen and the food along with the help of others I’m sure.
- Turns out that our custodian for the evening was from one of the former Yugoslavian countries and hadn’t enjoyed borek since being here in the US, so he was happy as a clam.
- Our amazing guests who arrived with smiles and enthusiasm. Thank you everybody for making such a fun party!
- Greek dances are the best!
- Only to be topped by the hora. Being carried around on a chair is pretty fun. A special thank you to our Jewish friends for sharing that tradition with us gentiles. Had it not been for my dad’s request, we might have missed out. So thanks to my dad too.
- Turns out that I wasn’t the only person who was tired from our ambitious week of activity. There was some concern among our close ranks of supporters about whether or not we were going to be able clean up after such a big event. Well our amazing guests came through yet again with an incredibly effective clean-up effort. We did finish a bit ahead of schedule just because so many of us were pooped, but I felt so lucky to have the help of so many hands in putting our fabulous party to rest. Thank you everybody who helped us leave no trace of our good times.
And here are the honorable mentions of the things that were planned, but truly deserve to be revisited in order to be fully enjoyed by all:
- self supporting human circle. That would have been fun with so many people! Next time…..
- english country dance. Despite the heroic efforts of our fearless leaders, it seems that a caller – or hours and hours of highly concentrated preparation – really is needed to make a go of these things. I guess that they had a bit more rehearsal than we did for that heart-tingling scene in Pride and Prejudice. Incidentally, I had the most amazing night sometime after our ball at Ashkenaz in Berkeley. One of the most popular callers on the west coast led us in a few different square dances, it was an amazing hour. I walked out of there high as a kite. To me that’s what dancing is all about.
- MJ line dance. My friend Laura S. didn’t let me live that one down for a while. We’ll have to have another ball, just for that…..
- power outage at the photo shoot site. There has to be some technical problem at some point, that’s just how these things go. Cheers to Erich for doing an amazing job in spite of that major snafu.
- prizes awarded to cake walk winners. Whoops! I used up all the prizes earlier at the scavenger hunt and forgot to replenish my supply. Those gals really did deserve a reward for their fabulous style: Krisna Hanks and Allison Gonzalez, please come dance with me again sometime soon!
- Our Family Dessert Smorgasbord. Oh, I was so sad about this! We went through all this effort to get everybody’s picks and then to be sure that each person’s dessert of choice was there. And they were, but there was so much food that some of the goodies didn’t even see hungry mouths until the following day at our first annual May Day in the Park. Some of the items we purchased, but some of them were homemade. Here’s the record of our family favorites. I had this whole plan of making a label for each dessert with the person’s name and a funny picture of them expressing their supreme gastronomic satisfaction. I think that Sirena and Harris are the only ones who we actually got photos of. They are quite funny, it would have been a challenge to choose just one.
- Faye: chocolate chip cookies (Nieman Marcus recipe)
- David: strawberry shortcake
- Elizabeth Stevenson, Faye’s mom: lemon bars
- Roger Cotting, Faye’s stepdad: orange cake
- Morley Stevenson, Faye’s dad: pineapple upside down cake
- Martina Stevenson, Faye’s stepmom: key lime tarts
- Thea Cullen, Faye’s aunt: pecan pie
- Ken Cullen, Faye’s uncle: banana cream pie (with banana in every bite)
- Scott Stevenson, Faye’s brother: cheesecake with cherries jubilee
- Cole Stevenson, Faye’s brother: apple crisp
- Alexa Stevenson, Faye’s sister: oatmeal scotchies (oatmeal butterscotch cookies)
- Dean Twist, David’s dad: dark chocolate fudge with walnuts
- Margo Tabet, David’s aunt: cream puffs
- Marilyn Twist, David’s aunt: peach pie
- Sirena Masket, David’s cousin: Indian sticks (a brownie variation)
- Harris Masket, David’s cousin in law: chocolate pudding with whipped cream
- Laura Tabet, David’s cousin: flour-less chocolate cake
- Ajay Reed, Laura’s girlfriend: carrot cake
- Mary Ann Twist, David’s cousin: fruit salad
- A Twist Family favorite (made by David’s aunt Jo in Wisconsin and shipped to us here in California): turtles
- Extras because we are dessert crazy: lemon meringue pie, nummy brownies (the ones with the purple flowers and the marshmallow layer)
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