Last Saturday, I went to a family party in Philadelphia. It was the kind of party where you see people whom you haven't seen in many years, and everyone brings something, and there's far more food (both homemade and catered) and drink than anyone could ever consume.
The party was at the Philadelphia Canoe Club, a really lovely spot for a party. The building is over 100 years old, and the property, which includes an old stone building with porches and huge windows with deep windowsills, and grounds that slope gently down to the water, sits at the confluence of the Wissahickon Creek and the Schuylkill River.
When your cousin is the president of the club, then you can borrow a canoe or kayak. On a cold day, you can stay inside, where there's a huge fireplace, and walls decorated with antique paddles and photos of old club members, and high-water mark plaques commemorating the many times that the building has flooded during the last century or so.
So it was a nice party, but with a big mess to clean up at the end. The handful of us who remained got to work. It's kind of fun to clean up a big party mess. You start with the easy jobs; the low-hanging fruit--throw away half-eaten plates of food, collect empty cups and bottles, gather all of the decorations and centerpieces on to one table, so that you can clear the tablecloths and trash from the rest of the tables. You fold and stack the folding chairs. Then the real clean-up begins.
There were tons of dishes to wash and tons and tons of food to wrap and distribute. I really hate to wash dishes at home, but I don't mind it at someone else's house, or boathouse, as the case might be. And I really hate packing up leftover food. So I volunteered to wash the dishes.
The best thing about being the dishwasher in a large dinner cleanup operation is that the rest of the cleanup proceeds behind your back, and you have no idea what's going on. You stay focused on the dishes (and no one bothers you; if they do, you justly claim that your hands are full) and then when you turn around after 15 minutes or so, it's like the kitchen fairy has paid a visit. Platters full of half-eaten food have turned into tidy parcels of leftovers for people to take home; the dirty floor is neatly swept, and the counters are clean.
The party was a 30th birthday party, and the playlist was early 21st century nostalgia, chosen by people who have begun to realize that they are now old enough to reminisce about their youth. In between Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Wanna Be," and Beyonce and Jay-Z's "Crazy in Love," and Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocket Full of Sunshine," I washed and rinsed and piled dishes on the huge drainboard.
A friend once commented that plastic wineglasses depressed her. I'm not sure why. We could have recycled the wineglasses, but whoever cleared the table piled them into the sink, so we were clearly meant to wash them, and so I did. They were molded to look like lead crystal, and that made me happy for some odd reason. Someone tried to make something plain and ordinary a little bit nicer. The 500 or so plastic glasses (oxymoronic, no?) that I washed and rinsed probably ended up in the trash, but the boxed wine tasted just fine, and the party was fun, and we left the Canoe Club just as we found it.
The party was at the Philadelphia Canoe Club, a really lovely spot for a party. The building is over 100 years old, and the property, which includes an old stone building with porches and huge windows with deep windowsills, and grounds that slope gently down to the water, sits at the confluence of the Wissahickon Creek and the Schuylkill River.
 |
| I like deep windowsills. |
When your cousin is the president of the club, then you can borrow a canoe or kayak. On a cold day, you can stay inside, where there's a huge fireplace, and walls decorated with antique paddles and photos of old club members, and high-water mark plaques commemorating the many times that the building has flooded during the last century or so.
 |
| Is this a kayak or a canoe? I have no idea. My 16-year-old son got the hang of it pretty quickly, and enjoyed a solo paddle around the confluence. |
So it was a nice party, but with a big mess to clean up at the end. The handful of us who remained got to work. It's kind of fun to clean up a big party mess. You start with the easy jobs; the low-hanging fruit--throw away half-eaten plates of food, collect empty cups and bottles, gather all of the decorations and centerpieces on to one table, so that you can clear the tablecloths and trash from the rest of the tables. You fold and stack the folding chairs. Then the real clean-up begins.
There were tons of dishes to wash and tons and tons of food to wrap and distribute. I really hate to wash dishes at home, but I don't mind it at someone else's house, or boathouse, as the case might be. And I really hate packing up leftover food. So I volunteered to wash the dishes.
The best thing about being the dishwasher in a large dinner cleanup operation is that the rest of the cleanup proceeds behind your back, and you have no idea what's going on. You stay focused on the dishes (and no one bothers you; if they do, you justly claim that your hands are full) and then when you turn around after 15 minutes or so, it's like the kitchen fairy has paid a visit. Platters full of half-eaten food have turned into tidy parcels of leftovers for people to take home; the dirty floor is neatly swept, and the counters are clean.
The party was a 30th birthday party, and the playlist was early 21st century nostalgia, chosen by people who have begun to realize that they are now old enough to reminisce about their youth. In between Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Wanna Be," and Beyonce and Jay-Z's "Crazy in Love," and Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocket Full of Sunshine," I washed and rinsed and piled dishes on the huge drainboard.
A friend once commented that plastic wineglasses depressed her. I'm not sure why. We could have recycled the wineglasses, but whoever cleared the table piled them into the sink, so we were clearly meant to wash them, and so I did. They were molded to look like lead crystal, and that made me happy for some odd reason. Someone tried to make something plain and ordinary a little bit nicer. The 500 or so plastic glasses (oxymoronic, no?) that I washed and rinsed probably ended up in the trash, but the boxed wine tasted just fine, and the party was fun, and we left the Canoe Club just as we found it.
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