Breakfast Dessert and Other Shenanigans

Last night, two of the awesomest people ever came over for dinner. Of course, when you have awesome people over, awesome things happen. Awfully funny awesome things. For example:

This one needs a little background: Dan (awesome person number two) insisted that he bring something over with him. I challenged him to make a "Bridget-proof" dessert. When discussing options, he asked if I was allergic to goats' milk products. On receiving a negative, he expressed relief because he wanted to bring goat milk yogurt. I raised a quizzical eyebrow or two, but I, being a gracious hostess, didn't actually vocalize the concern.

At least, I didn't tell him. I did call Karen last night (awesome person number one) and ask her if I should surreptitiously bake brownies because Dan was bringing breakfast for dessert. She said no; she thought it would be ok. If he was still hungry, he could eat when he got home. Kinda a strange answer, but I let it go.

When Dan got to our house, he asked for a pot so he could start our "breakfast dessert." Incredulous, I looked at Karen. "You told him??" She conceded that she had and I turned a bright color. He is never, ever, ever going to let me live this down. Especially since we weren't having yogurt for dessert. We were having some fancy dessert that consisted of apples boiled in wine with cinnamon and sugar and stuff of that sort, garnished with the plain yogurt and the wine boiled down into a syrup. He did graciously leave the left over goat yogurt for our consumption. It made a tasty breakfast.

The second event worthy of mention is that our family failed to live up to Italian standards: we had no garlic in the house. Ok, maybe not strictly true. We had a quarter of a teaspoon of garlic powder. That's it. The spaghetti was... not garlicy. I may or may not have panicked. Dan may or may not have tried to put a chili in it. And pepper. He's clearly not Italian.What was probably the funniest part of the whole thing was that I called my sister, hoping that she could pick up garlic powder before she got home from Mass. I didn't quite succeed. We had a phone conversation while she was in our garage. Ha! But no garlic powder. Which merited a cheeky comment from one of our guests that was to the effect of, "It needs garlic."

The third thing was not really something I can explain. It was just hysterical to watch. Karen, Andrea, and Dan were all involved in the vegetable cooking. There was a great flurry of pot holders, spoons, spices, etc. The oven was opened and closed, shelves were repositioned, and there was just general chaos. It was quite the project. And it left me laughing hysterically.

Bikini-Clad Catholic?

A topic of hot debate: can girls concerned with modesty wear a bikini? Points of concern: the girls' dignity, the boys' eyes and imaginations. But for this Catholic girl, it really has always come down to one thing: they just aren't flattering.

Don't get me wrong, please. It's not that I don't think that girls have dignity and beauty (because they do). It's not that I don't think boys should view girls as lovable, not gawkable (I will personally slug any boy I catch gawking openly). It's not that I don't believe that boys have rather vivid imaginations (I just have to trust the ones I know... and the ones who deny that they're that way... well, I don't know any of them, so my clothing choices are really neither here nor there as far as they're concerned). But those subjects have been hashed and rehashed by people for years. And I mean years. Smart people, dumb people, extreme people (to both sides), girls, guys, Catholics, non-Catholics... people have a bit of an obsession with the modesty thing and I am not going to join on that band wagon. I am not going to approach this from moral grounds. I am going to approach this from my base female nature (by which I mean my instincts, not that I'm gross or a lower being or something).

The simplest reason that I don't want to wear them is that I look ridiculous in them. My Italian heritage has pre-determined too many things about my shape. It is not something I care to expose to the world. I like my tummy covered, thank you. Because it's not all that pretty. Honestly (no offense, ladies), I don't think most girls look fabulous in bikinis either. Sure, there are bikini models in the world. They look stunning and gorgeous. Maybe too gorgeous for masculine imaginations to handle. That said, most of us don't look like them. Right? C'mon.

So maybe, in the end, I am keeping myself covered to help the fellas'. And the gals, too. No one wants to see this.