The Facebook Ham Saga

Oh, this is fun. There's a long discussion on Facebook, all about a lousy little ham.

Joshua's birthday ham turned out to be a total waste of time, because, he has informed me, he can no longer eat ham. Not to mention the fact that when I told him his birthday present was in the oven, he gallantly said something along the lines of, "Oh, but I wanted to use the oven." Later he informed me he could no longer eat ham because of the sodium...and happy birthday to you too. At least his somewhat risque birthday card amused him, and he's now out to dinner with a friend, so I won't have to put up with any whining.

However, I informed my child about the ham. This has caused a total eruption on Facebook, because my hams are legendary.

There is NEVER a party in this house without a ham. I make a glaze out of nothing more involved than good honey and Dijon mustard, and people dive in and don't come up for air until it's down to the bone...10 pound ham, 12 pound ham...I've gone up to 18 pound hams, and they're all gone before I turn around.

Well, so I said to Sarah, hey, come by after work tomorrow because I've got a ham. Sarah's roommate Michael leaped into the fray, salivating all over his keyboard (or phone, as the case may be). What with one thing and another, it's an absolutely delightfully nutty Facebook sequence...revolving around that poor benighted tiny little six pound ham (which looks terribly paltry to me, too - remember, I'm the lady who thinks nothing of cooking an 18 pound ham and a 16 pound poached salmon for a party). And it just drove me into throwing a party.

The thing is, I'm in the mood for a party because I'm bored, and if people are jonesing about ham, I figure they're in the mood for a party too. I'm sick and tired of looking at the unholy wreck Joshua's packing has made of my living room, and the unholy wreck his cooking has made of my kitchen, so I'm going to follow family tradition. And in my family, the tradition was: If the house is filthy, throw a party!

You see, it makes perfect sense (it helps if you come from a thoroughly twisted family like mine). It is invariably a LOT more fun to read a book, play Scrabble or gin rummy (at both of which my family excelled...we used the Oxford English Dictionary for Scrabble, which tended to make for long games because we're all fanatic dictionary readers and we got sidetracked a lot) than to scrub the toilet or do something about the crud on the stove. But...you honestly don't want people seeing how you REALLY live, now do you? So, obviously, you give a party and FORCE yourself to clean up. Admittedly, you still end up with a filthy house, but you've had a lovely time.

A party. What a great idea. What the hell...if the kids are buying the ham, I might just squeeze out a few bucks for meatballs. They're a damn nuisance to make, but at one party, I made meatballs out of ten pounds of meat, and there was nothing left. These would be the famous sweet and sour meatballs...

Oh, shit. I think I just talked myself into this, God help me. I feel exactly like Bert Lahr in Wizard - "Somebody talk me outta this!"

Love, Wendy