Meat Shower

We had a shower for Toby's newest girlfriend's Mom last weekend, and I think everybody had a nice time. I liked the way the room looked even though all I did was vacuum and put up a few balloons and these ridiculous tissue pompoms from MARTHA.

There is something so satisfying about enormous shiny balloons, though I am overly sensitive about their popping potential and I wouldn't let the kids play with any of them. Paranoia is just one of my charms.

It's fun having parties for other people, especially when they're in the afternoon and the rest of the day can be spent lounging around an abnormally clean house full of beer, brie, sherbet and meatballs. (I love to cook meatstuff even though I haven't eaten any since 1986. Because it's gross, but I could totally slaughter and stuff.)

The meatball recipe was very popular:
One large container Grape Jelly (seriously)
Two jars of Heinz Spicy Sauce (looks like cocktail sauce and is in the ketchup aisle)
One package of frozen Italian Meat Balls (from Costco- I didn't actually use all of them but you can)

1. Heat the Grape Jelly and the Sauce until it's melted and combined. Try not to let it boil over on your stove because it's a dirty ho to clean up.
2. Put it all in a slow cooker for about 6 hours. The balls are actually pre-cooked so you don't have to worry too much if you don't have that much time, but you do want the sauces to really get all absorby and coaty and stuff.
3. Provide napkins and a cardiologist's phone number.
4. Don't tell the pregnant women about the Grape Jelly ingredient until you're sure they don't have anything against grape jelly. 8 out of 10 women at my party were pregnant. I am not.