You've got to have friends

My lonely post has been top of the list for toooooooo long. I get it. I just haven't had a whole lot more to say. And Ross is gone again. He left on Monday and won't be back for another week.

The good news is that he will be bringing both his parents back to their home before he returns. His dad has been through a course of radiation and will be allowed back home. And his mom is lucid and gaining weight and strength. They say she can leave the nursing home late next week. Ross will get her settled in and come back here on Saturday or Sunday.

It's pretty great -- and surprising -- that they've both made such a recovery.

When last I wrote . . . I told you about ordering pizza for the Friday night group. Well, they deserve better than that. So I cooked! (I wasn't entirely sure my cooking would be better than Pizza Hut, but I was willing to try.)

Since I don't get Friday's off, I needed something I could make ahead. I was in the mood for black bean soup and I found a great recipe online, along with complementary cornbread muffins.

I made the soup on Wednesday. Fortunately, we have a practically empty fridge downstairs to store it in. I had to make the muffins when I got home for work . . . and I had a meeting that ended pretty late, so I was in the middle of preparations when the first people arrived. Roupen and Shirley began setting the table immediately. (I was worried about doing that the night before, because I thought the dogs would pull everything on the floor.) Todd and Linda came next and finished making the muffins. Anita brought a salad. Donna brought something else. Others came with dessert offerings. Peter and Kristy came all the way from Argentina!! (They just got back after being gone several months.)

It was a more than full house. We kept adding place settings until no more place settings could be added. There were 14 of us!

I think everyone had enough to eat. We were on seconds when we ran out of soup. One lonely, little muffin was my breakfast this morning.

There were dog adventures, too. Soup was spilled and I got a snarl when I pulled a dog away from the clean-up. The door didn't completely latch after I said goodbye to one guest and Slick got out long enough to snarl at a nice dog in our front yard. (I had the presence of mind to yell, "Do you want a cookie?" and he came running back in.) The dog's owners couldn't have been more gracious. I couldn't have been more mortified.

In short, a wacky time was had by all.

I think we'll have to do it again next week.

Photo is by Kevin Dooley. Found on Flickr Creative Commons.