Send in the troops!

My big-ass annual Derby party is this Saturday, and I haven't made much progress as far as making my home palatable for visitors. There are toys everywhere, random baby stuff like diapers, hats and carriers all over the dining room, and there are Cheerios literally under foot in every single room. Luckily, my friend Courtney came over to help last night, kicking my ass and making me grudgingly admit I might be a hoarder. The problem is I love me some garage sales and like to fill my house with funky finds. I haven't known Courtney all that long, but she sure got a crash course in my wackier side last night after trying to figure out where to put all my pens, strange card games, jewelry, art and fabulous 80s orange Betsy Johnson sweater with a huge zipper down the sleeve. After all that, she still stuck around and even donned a terrible mu mu (is that how you spell it? moo moo? mumu?) her boss gave her to wear to a weeding this weekend.

After she left, I finalized the menu and for the first time in my life see the convenience of things like Bisquick and pre-made pie shells. I usually go all out for any sort of entertaining (Thanksgiving takes me a few days in the kitchen), but this year I'm channeling that freaky Sandra Lee from the Food Network and working in some semi-homemade options so I don't totally lose my marbles. Menu will include some southern specialties like corn pudding, biscuits, tea sandwiches, ham (cooked in Coca-Cola, a little white trash tip that makes it OH SO GOOD), salad, roasted brussel sprouts and, of course, mint juleps. Guests wear their southern finery and can wager on the winner. It's a grand time, although last year was a lot more subdued because a.) I was pregnant and b.) I realized I had been making the mint juleps wrong in years past and adjusted the amount of alcohol DOWN, leading to less drunkenness. Nevertheless, someone did fall off a bike into our bushes, and my friend Karen slugged Nate because he beat her at cards.

Tonight I will have to be a white tornado in the house and may even try to sneak some grocery shopping in because tomorrow night I'll be home alone while Nate celebrates a new holiday : Syncro de Mayo. I'll try to explain that without making him sound like a total geek. He owns a Volkswagen Quantum Syncro from the 80s. They are apparently good little cars and have a cult following--there is an extremely active listserv of owners that Nate spends a good deal of time on. His friend KP lives near us and has about a dozen of these cars, no joke. Syncro de Mayo was his idea, and I swear people are coming in from out of state to attend. I know not what to say except that I LOVE how odd my husband is.

I have a ton of pictures to post of Clementine's first couple of bike rides and our trip to Iowa. Maybe somewhere in all this craziness I'll get to that because even with a helmet on she is too too cute. Which reminds me that we now have official unbiased confirmation of that fact (not like we needed it). We went to our favorite BBQ joint, Slows, earlier this week and were enjoying our meal when the manager came over to ask how the food was. "Oh, and look!" she exclaimed. "It's Clementine." We don't go that very often, so I was surprised until she told me it would be hard to forget the world's cutest baby. How true, how true. OK, so maybe she didn't say WORLD'S cutest, but she definitely implied it.

Note: This post has been edited. Apparently I spelled Syncro wrong initially (spelled it Synchro, which seems logical to me) and someone sure had something to say about that.