Party On, Dude.

Given the sustained lack of life in the shell of our home, we decided to do the most absurd thing we could think of: cater a cocktail party in the rubble of the front lawn. Large Marge Sustainables prepared the food. Here's the menu:

Mt Tam triple cream and Mission fig sandwiches with arugula on crostini

homemade ricotta, grilled radicchio and lemon zucchini on crostini

rustic herbed heirloom tomato tart with caramelized onions and olives

honey cumin picholine olives and almonds

crudite with Asian walnut dip, and basil and lemon mayonnaise

fresh strawberries and minted whipped cream on walnut cornmeal cookie

Yum.

Don't think I related the story of Large Marge. Large Marge is actually small meg. Meg appeared in our lives days after the fire at the beckoning of our good friend and neighborhood connector Cheryl Revkin, who procured Meg's services to make us a home cooked meal after the fire. So on the first night in our new (rented)house, with no furniture or personal possessions to be seen and only our plastic inflatable mattresses on which to sleep, Meg

 appeared bearing iron pots full of luscious victuals, which we consumed on her plates as a picnic on the empty, echoey living room floor. It was the first food made by a real person we had eaten for days and it

 was like penicillin.

A few months later, we decided to make a dinner for the firemen who had diligently saved both our homes and many of our precious belongings in what was truly extraordinary work (remind me to tell you the story some time). Meg was the obvious call (since we didn't, and don't, yet own a knife sharp enough to cut through a tomato). She appeared bearing racks of chickens, which we fed to the dozen or so hungry and charming firefolk who inhabit LAFD station 56 on the C shift. It was a wonderful evening,a nd the men seemed to appreciate the care. It was an opportunity to share our appreciation and gratitude, and for Charlie to connect with those who spend their lives in ther service of others (the ride in the ladder truck with the siren on didn't hurt either).

So now Meg is an integral part of our narrative, as inseparable from the journey as the flashlights I keep in my car so as to be able to enter the darkened house. once again, she did not disappoint.

I think about 40 people showed up, plus a pack of kids. The adults stood amid the crushed ash, singed goose down, and broken glass and drank gin and tonics, wine, and beer, laughed and shared stories, and toured the denuded shell while the kids played mad and endless games around the property. There was joy, and life, and a revivified sense of the deep connection we feel for our friends and neighbors. The builders were there as well, and the net result of the evening was to bring once again to that forlorn property the sound of laughter and the ambiance of society, to remind it, perhaps, that it was not forgotten, but rather hibernating before it's next life begins. i think even the Buddah, which sits guard over the property since the day after the fire when we bought and installed it there, smiled.

With luck, groundbreaking next week.

I forgot to take pics, but Chris sent along a few, following: