Nanny Goats in Panties: May 2010

At the little Welcome Party/Orientation for us the night we arrived at our "resort" in Lake Tahoe a couple of weeks ago, they tell us that the temperature at the bottom of the lake, the second deepest lake in the world, is fifty-two degrees. A nasally-voiced lady seated in front of me pipes up in dissent.

"That can't be right", she says. "Because that's too warm and dead bodies would release gas and float up to the top all bloated." This prompts a discussion about some sheriff who is rumored to be at the bottom of the lake. I'm wondering how these people can talk like this in front of a child I see in the front row, but if his father isn't saying anything, then whatever, man.

On another day, out of earshot of children and pedantic tourists, one of the resort guys tells me that he's convinced the casinos were at one time run by The Mob, which in turn meant that there were a lot of feet chained to, or encased in, cement blocks at the bottom of the lake.

We were also told at some point that Lake Tahoe was 95% pure.

So if you do the math, five percent of that lake is dead bodies, right? What is that, maybe 8,000 dead bodies or so? Do you know how many potential zombies that is? I can't do the math that fast so when you figure it out, let me know.

A couple of days later, I'm at a restaurant atop Harrah's Casino and a woman at the table behind me is loudly asking her tablemates, "Who's that guy? You know, that gangster guy. Really famous..." and then the waiter comes up and she asks him too, "Who's that guy, the famous mob guy? The one who went missing and they think he's in the bottom of Lake Tahoe..."

Nobody. Nobody at the table can help this woman. On the inside I'm all Horseshacky, squirming around, my inside voice is all "ooh-ooh-ooh!". My Jeopardy clock is ticking down like I've only got three seconds to answer the question. Adrenaline courses through my body but I resist the urge to turn around and blurt out the answer because I don't want to look like some desperate Blanche of eavesdroppers who depends on the conversations of others.

But I can't stand it. My mind won't think of anything else until I extricate the correct and final answer from my body like the demon that it is. I turn around in my chair.

"Excuse me," I explode, panting. "It's Jimmy Hoffa."

Whew! There. I got it out of my system. Except that my know-it-all ego wants seconds. I tell it to get back in its cage and take a nap. It's done for the evening.

Hey, I took a picture from our dinner table, wanna see?

From the someteenth floor of Harrah's

Just think, five-percent of that water holds a future pack of zombies, biding its time, waiting for the right moment to spring up, take over and eat everybody.

You knew it was Hoffa, right?

Ah, Spring. The twittering of birds. The blooming of flowers. The attending of parties. What's not to love?

WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE??? I'll tell you what's not to love. It's that part about the attending of parties. I'm either whining that I don't get invited to parties, or I'm whining that I got invited and don't know what to do about it.

Saturday afternoon about 2:30pm, I'm beginning to fret that since the party my husband and I were invited to starts in a couple of hours, and since said party is a Kentucky Derby party, and since the invitation to said party distinctly reads: "festive attire is encouraged", that maybe I ought to wear something other than a T-shirt and sweatpants. I Googled "Kentucky Derby Party" images and quickly realized that there is actual fashion for such events. Like hats. And dresses. ACK!

And then!... Then my husband comes into my office while I'm Googling party outfits and tells me that the race is at 3:30, one hour BEFORE this party starts. Well, THAT doesn't make sense, so I pick up the phone and put down the phone and I pick up the phone and put down the phone. Because who am I, a mere acquaintance to the hostess at this point, to have such audacity telling her how to throw her own party? Then I pick up the phone and call the hostess and say something inane about how her invitation stated that we would watch the race at the party. Come watch the fastest 2 minutes in sports, it said, but how can that be if the party doesn't even start until an hour after the race is over?

Our gracious hostess may have rolled her eyes and questioned her sanity at inviting us as she explained how there's this new technology called DVR and blah blah recording blah blah and I hung up feeling like an idiot with control issues. I'm already two notches down on the party point scale and it hasn't even started yet. Did I mention that I didn't RSVP until the day before the party? Make that three notches.

So I spent the next hour wondering how many people were going to be there and were they really going to dress up or would I walk in looking like a dork in my Sunday-go-to-meetin' get-up at a party where I didn't know ANYBODY.

I scrounged around the piles on my closet floor, and pulled out something mint julippy and threw it on.

Hey y'all.

So while I felt a bit prepared wardrobe-wise, I went back to worrying about a party of fifty, maybe even a hundred strangers, wishing I knew more about the drugs that people take to calm themselves down.

I didn't want to get there too early, so we left at 4:30, which was when the party started. We got there at 4:33. Ack! I thought, that's too early! Look! There's no one parked in front of the house.

"Let's go run an errand", I begged my husband.

That took five whole minutes. Even driving slowly. Ever notice there's never a red light around when you need one?

Yes, the party was fantastic and yes, I met some really nice people and yes, I had a good time, so why do I always worry so much beforehand about being perfect? What horrible childhood trauma occurred for me to be so anxious about these things? And exactly which drugs should I take for this condition?

And who won the Kentucky Derby, anyway? 'Cause we had such a blast, that high-tech DVR thingie never got turned on.