Thanks and apology...

Thank you to everyone who came to the party at my Mom's house last night.

I'm sorry that I flaked out and disappeared for a while. I was having a peculiar moment...

I wore my new finery, in this case a purple hippy/rennie/ethnic festival dress with my new Fishie Corset over it.

At one point, I became overwhelmed. The house was crowded and between the sheer number of people and the sheer number of burning candles, it was hotter than (as Brad put it recently) a Ho Ho Ho in Church in there, and very... close. I extinguished most of the candles and had my mom kick the life support system to air conditioning.

I kept circling and circling and was doing so much more rapidly than hostess etiquette requires. I wound up on the front step with a couple of friends, two of which went out there to smoke.

Normally at my mom's house, there's a sort of a safety valve available when the house gets too crowded; the back deck becomes viable party space and the smokers and fresh-air people go outside and mill about out there.

Last night, however, the back deck was dripping wet and had a constant drizzle that sometimes ramped itself up to a nice downpour. See, in the summer, there are simple camping canopies covering the deck in case of showers, and comfortable cushions on the chairs, and tables and benches at which groups of people can gather.
In the winter time my mom and Step-Dad usually don't have the canopies up, and they don't have the cushions on the deck chairs. If it had been merely cold, people would have ignored it and gone out there anyway. Being not so cold but completely sodden... well, no one wanted to go out there.

So I grabbed a cheerful volunteer and proceeded to put up one of the canopies and announced that the back deck was available.

Then I nearly passed out. I mean, like in the old stories where a lady faints dead away. My equilibrium just gave me the finger and wandered off on me and I felt something akin to a minor anxiety attack as either a reaction to the faintness or as a symptom of it. The world went wonky.

Well. THAT'S not good.

So I had another friend pull me out of the corset (she can get a lady out of a corset faster than Jack Sparrow and she doesn't need a knife!) and then announced that I was going to go lay down for a while.

A few people came to check on me, which was nice. Then it was like a little mini-party upstairs and I decided that I had sufficiently recovered and could rejoin the party. I also figured out one of the possible culprits.
I'd outlasted my sinus medication.
I'd done it on purpose so that I could drink in the evening. One does not want to mix alcohol with random meds, and what I had on hand here at home was one of those multisymptom cold/sinus caplet things. It was very clear: Don't mix with booze. I'd taken some early in the day and then had a nice nap. I was feeling great by the time I got ready for the party...

But three hours into the party I tipped RIGHT over, and my sinuses were clogged and whining at me again. I took some sinus-only medication at Mom's house, which helped a bit but by then my ride was ready to leave.

Gah.
That's twice that I had a great social event that I missed out on while I was *there*!

So, if I seemed to be ignoring you or missing from the party, that's why. Sorry.