John put on a conference this week-end. And as part of that conference, he decided to host a dinner party for 25 people.

We prepped for two weeks. The kids and I cleaned the house from top to bottom, and incidentally found a missing library book. We actually had to clean the house several times because we live with Chaos Boy and his exploding box of cars.

John cooked African peanut stew, chicken cacciatore, oatmeal cookies, and brownies and froze them all, so he could get home at 5:00 from the last presentation, and magically have a full meal on the table by 6:00.

We didn't know what we were going to do with the kids. They are both shy, and shockingly, no other kids were on the guest list. It turned out great. I suggested to David that he get a game to play with the three grad students who arrived first. I turned around and 7 people were kneeling around the coffee table playing Pass the Pigs. Later in the evening he charmed several grown-ups into reading to him, and he went to bed with no fuss. Rose was her charming self, discussing her favorite books with one of my favorite people, Hal. She too went to bed without a fuss.

Then, we cranked up the music and boogied down. No, really. John and I taught eight good-natured topologists how to do east coast swing.

Early in the evening, a couple of them were pouring over a map, and the Russian showed where his family was from--Dnepropetrovsk.

I said, "Dnepropetrovsk? Like in Lobachevsky?"
He said, "Huh?"
I said, "The song, by Tom Lehrer."
He said, "Who?"

So, as our last event of the evening John played everyone the song. It was this man's very own home town, and he adored Lehrer. A great end to the evening.