…or thereabouts.  Yesterday a group of friends from Washington came up for a visit.  I did my fish fry and they brought me some birthday gifts, since last Wednesday was my birthday.  I spent all day Friday getting Casa del Garrett ready for its first party since I bought the place in 2001.  I shampooed the carpets, dusted as many corners as I could reach, stocked the bar, the fridge, and the pantry, got the music ready, set out the deck and patio furniture, put out fresh towels and fluffed the cushions.

It was wonderful.  My friends came and settled in out on the backyard deck while I fired up the deep fryers and sliced up four pounds of hake I’d bought that morning at Whole Foods, and dipped it in Deep Fry Batter #5.  I had two Waring deep fryers going, a second one that I’d bought recently for this party and future ones, so I could have one fryer going with fish and another with french fries.  My friends brought me an absolutely decadent vanilla cake, flowers…(Flowers!  Nobody’s ever brought me flowers before…ever…) and Anton Bauer eiswein, which I was told is a sweet wine made from grapes that have been allowed to take the first frost on the vine before being picked and pressed.  It’s a "sipping wine", they said.

We’d planned to go out to the Baltimore clubs later in the evening, but instead we all stayed here at Casa del Garrett well into the wee hours because we were all enjoying each other’s company so much.  They put candles on the cake, and I blew them out (making my usual wish…) and read my cards.  We listened to music off my satelite connection and iTunes around the bar.  My friends helped themselves to the bar, and the kitchen, as I’d hoped they would, and as usual, every last scrap of my fish fry vanished.  Once, as I was offhandedly bitching about getting old, one of them told me to knock it off because I still had a very nice body, and a cute ass.  My friends know how to perk me up.

One friend stayed overnight on the art room sofa bed.  The others rented a local hotel room for the evening.  This morning we all had brunch at Cafe’ Hon just down the road from my house.  Then we browsed a few antique shops on the Hampden Village Avenue.  They’ve gone back to Washington now, and I’ve just gotten into the eiswein.  Oh My God this stuff is…decadent.  And yes…you must sip it, savor it, slowly.  It’s very sweet, melt-into-your-pallet wine.

I’m all alone here at Casa del Garrett again.  And yet, something’s different.  I’m sipping eiswein in my little Baltimore rowhouse and it feels more alive now then before.  Happier.  More contented.  It takes more then living in a house to make it a home.  You have to invite people in too.