Okay, so somewhere along the course of tonight’s dinner club party someone who was a fountain of trivial information (no, not me) mentioned that today was National Dinner Party Day. So, without knowing it, I ended up celebrating the day in high style. I was pleased that it went so well, even if it was, like most of the activities I am involved with in my life, a more dramatic sort of affair than I would have preferred. Still, the end result was well worth it, and that is not something that can be said about all the experiences that life has to offer. So, since the whole aspect of a dinner club is something I am not familiar with, I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss.

So, my congregation has a dinner club where people/couples each host a dinner one evening and everyone brings food and enjoys some fine conversation. As a bachelor who does not have a great deal of time or necessarily the most skill in a kitchen, I was a little bit concerned about my ability to hold my own with far more polished entertainers, but I decided to be brave and sign up for it anyway, at least because it offered the chance for more food and a chance to get to know others a little better, since I do not know any of the other people in my group all that well (though, we all know each other a bit better after tonight, seeing as I had never eaten with any of them before, and one of the most enjoyable times for me in getting to know others involves food and conversation together).

Of course, there had to be an angle that made tonight more complex than it would have been otherwise, and this is the rub. When the rotations for the dinner club went out, they were chosen more or less by the area one lives in, and having lived on the east side of town before recently, it made sense for me to be put together with two couples from the east side (along with one from Vancouver). Of course, now that I am in Beaverton, it is much more difficult to get to the east side. So, I thought that I was supposed to arrive at about 5:30PM to the dinner so I had time to chat a bit at church (which I did) and then drive home, heat up my chicken and vegetable soup, quickly change, and then drive off to Damascus. When I looked at the e-mail with the address, though, I found that I should have arrived between 4:30 and 5:00PM, and it was already 4:50PM by that time, so I had to quickly leave and get there as quickly as I could while keeping all the broth from sloshing out of the pot. This was not an easy task, given that driving between Beaverton and Damascus is not a very straightforward trip at all.

I finally arrived, but it was after 5:30PM and I was apologetic for arriving late, but then I found out I wasn’t even the last person to arrive, as a couple arrived shortly after I did. We chatted at bit, got the food heated up from their lengthy journeys, and sat down to eat. The soups were good, and were a wide mixture, and the dessert was a fantastic brownie. There was also salad and buttered bread as well. It was, all in all, a good dinner party with enjoyable and lively conversation and good food. Having three more dinners with this particular group is not a bad way to pass some evenings at all, given the sense of humor that everyone has. Next time we will be dining in Vancouver, and at some point I will need to host it myself, which I am a bit nervous about. Still, it is definitely a sympathetic audience, to be sure. We can all use that.