Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

I started Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and read this description of Sir Isaac Newton:

“Newton was a decidedly odd figure—brilliant beyond measure, but solitary, joyless, prickly to the point of paranoia, famously distracted (upon swinging his feet out of bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours, immobilized by the sudden rush of thoughts to his head), and capable of the most riveting strangeness.”

Boy, can I relate to getting immobilized by the whirlpool of thoughts in my head. The difference is that my thoughts aren’t changing the world.

The more I read about Newton’s quirkiness, the more I want to invite him over for dinner. And quirkiness at the dinner table reminds me of a fellow I knew eons ago in Chicago.

I was paying him (I believed) to get a job for me; he took my money to…I don’t know, coach me into getting a job myself? (This was long before life and business coaches came into vogue. I was ahead of the trends and didn’t realize it.) Our mismatched goals made for a hopeless situation.

However, the fellow—who had connections with movers and shakers everywhere—held dinner parties at least monthly that focused not on the food but on the guests. The fellow delighted in seating diverse and visionary minds of all disciplines at his table and watching sparks fly. He never mentioned names, but sometimes shared the results of these mixers with me if there was a lesson in it for me.

You probably have a long list of people—living and dead, famous and otherwise—you’d like to have a conversation with. I know I do. Close your eyes now and randomly pick a name from your list. Who is it? I’m curious about the kind of party we could have if each Lull reader brought someone from his/her fantasy list.

I’ll start the game with someone else from my list: my great-great-grandmother whose physical shape (but apparently not her world view) I’ve inherited and who performed in a rodeo.

Now it’s your turn: Tell me who’s coming to dinner. I’ll get out the Fiestaware.


[The End of Dinner by Jules-Alexandre Grün.]

Four Firsts for a Friend

We welcomed a friend here a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately for her, we were still emptying my father’s barn and exhausted from our efforts. We made lousy hosts, hardly up to showing her the highlights of the Horse Capital of the World. But surprisingly, she managed to experience some personal firsts anyway:

1. She ate her first Girl Scout Cookie—the classic Thin Mint.

2. She watched the Oscars on television with us.

3. She visited a humane society. The fact that said friend had a French upbringing doesn’t explain why she’s missed Thin Mints and the Oscars in her lifetime—especially since she’s lived in the States for a number of years now. However, her supersensitive allergic reactions to all things animal do justify her avoidance of animal shelters. She did fine, though. Even toured the dog kennels after we donated some bedding to the place.

4. When she called an acquaintance who currently resides in the Bluegrass, he couldn’t talk at that moment. He was hunting squirrels for dinner. (Do I really need to explain why this would be a first for most of us?)

In spite of her hosts, our houseguest had a memorable weekend here in what H. L. Mencken named the Bible Belt (now also dubbed the Diabetes Belt by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), proof that adventure awaits us no matter where we are. We only have to recognize it.

[Vintage Girl Scout cookie tin bank courtesy of Girl Scouts Make History; armed squirrel photo from Treehugger.]