I've Been Bitten--The Party Edition

First let me make it perfectly clear. I am not a party planner. While I admire those people who can come up with an idea and then carry out the whole creative invitation/decorating/menu planning scheme, I am not one of those people. But here's a secret I learned this week--sometimes all you need to do is offer your place as party headquarters to one of those people and you can get in on all the excitement yourself, with just a fraction of the work. Party on!

Jessica decided to have a "Twilight" party and invite people who had read at least two of the four books in the series. She did all the planning and we had it at my house because there was a bit more room.

I can tell you right now, this girl needs to seriously think about party planning as a career option. For all you Twilight lovers, she made amazing invitations and then sent them to Forks, Washington, to have the stamp canceled there so that it actually said "Forks, Washington" on the envelope. Talk about attention to detail.

The book covers themselves are just beautiful. Jessie had gotten some great ideas from different places and put them all together with her own special touch.

All party-goers were instructed to wear black and red, and we took individual pictures of each of them, with an apple, of course! Here are just a couple of them (Jessie has them all posted on her blog):

Jessica, the party planner:

My beautiful daughter-in-law, Christa (who also knows how to give an L of a party):

My friend, Sue (and mother of the party planner):

All the food in the carefully planned menu was red and black. Jessica found black squid ink pasta and red chianti pasta. And while the whole squid ink thing really doesn't sound that appetizing, at least to me, once you saute the pasta in olive oil and add some sundried tomatoes, it's really yummy.

Cherry tomatoes with kalamata olive spread, black and red corn chips with salsa, and black bean spread, red licorice "bites," red velvet cake, chocolate-covered strawberries, strawberry ice cream with chocolate chunks...mmmmmm.

And the drink selection--all you had to do was pick a "type"...

...and pour it into one of these glasses dripping with "blood."

You gotta love Jessie's red stilettos:

And our finale: a group photo.

I'll be happy to co-host a party at my house with you any time, Jessica!

Hearing voices

America's Got Talent! Yessiree. And we saw the 2007 talent winner, Terry Fator, on Monday night at Table Mountain Casino. Now I have to clue you in that Mark likes to watch shows like America's Got Talent and the audition portions of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance mostly to see people who mistakenly think they really do have talent, and then are shocked to find out that the judges don't agree with them. I always watch those initial weeks of the show with him, but my favorite part is when the contenders are actually competing, and usually by then Mark has lost interest. Fairly normal people with some actual talent. Although now would probably be a good time to discuss why Sanjaya actually lasted so long a couple of seasons ago on American Idol.

But I digress. We were really pulling for Terry Fator two years ago, and had it not been for the fact that we always TIVO'd the show and watched it later in the week, we probably would have actually picked up our cells phones and voted for him. This guy is a combination of amazing ventriloquism (and that is a talent you don't see everyday....), vocal impressionism and comedic talent. And he did not disappoint. He had an amazing variety of (hmmm, do you really call them dummies?) "talent" that he brought along with him. And it's the weirdest thing when you are watching a really good ventriloquist. You have your eyes on the dummy, like it is really the one doing the talking and singing. Weird...

He is scheduled to headline at the Mirage in Las Vegas starting next month, so we'll probably never be able to afford to see him again. Thanks, Terry, for performing at Table Mountain--it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.