And the Oscar Goes To...

Roger...for Best Prat-Fall Causing Maximum Damage.

Yeah, he fell and no, he is not hurt. Some newish friends invited us round to dinner and the Oscars and we went. Within minutes, I could tell that these friends would not be paying sufficient reverence to the Oscar moment and so I rooted around on their TV cabinet and found the remote...thus controlling everything we would see and the volume at which we would hear it that evening. While I am a bit embarrassed at my forward behavior now, at the time it felt right. My forward behavior and Roger's prat-fall can be attributed to the drinks. These folks don't ask you if you want a gin and tonic. They make up drinks, as in, here's a cachaca, vodka, pineapple juice and pear vodka drink on the rocks. I thank them, drink it and then steal the remote and stuff. Roger says thanks, drinks it and asks for another.

For me, the Oscars is not just about "okay if I had that much money and could afford a personal trainer/hairdresser/masseuse/makeup guru/someone to tell me what colors work with my skin tone I would NOT be wearing that dress/that hair/that makeup/that jewelry" but also about catching the subtle glances between exes...the minutae...that's what I love. That and those dancers behind the screen. That I loved. Loved.

We had a fabulous meal...the husband at this house of drinks, he's a chef-calibre cook. So, okay, the night is about the Oscars AND the food. I get it. But do we have to eat 18 feet away and around the corner from the TV and why (my husband asks) does the TV have to be so loud. I shoot him a look that says shutthefuckupandatleastletmelistentotheoscarsifican'twatch'emokay? So, the Oscars are starting to wind down and Roger and our host are in another room and the host is sharing his collection of single malt whiskies with Roger and I'm still controlling the remote and the show and then all of a sudden there is this whoop of laughter, then a crash, then silence, then confused chattering. This is what happened. Roger is sitting on a sort of delicate looking bar stool. The host makes him laugh by telling him that when he travels to out of the way places, like up the Yangtze, he takes his own toilet. This causes Roger to lose it, pitch backwards on the barstool, catch himself before he hits the floor (I think), but by doing so he literally almost picks up and throws a custom-made chair (custom-made as in made for only these people at great expense) at a coffee table whereupon it crashes into a two-foot wide ceramic bowl, bought at a gallery in Turkey (no doubt at great expense), an original in other words, and shatters (not exactly shatters, but breaks) it into a few big pieces and some tiny slivers, thereby (hey, I know this stuff, I watch The Antiques Roadshow) sucks every bit of value out of said bowl.

Tomorrow I will take the multi-pieced bowl to a porcelain restorer in Los Angeles where, first estimate, for at least several hundred dollars they will sort of be able to restore it to almost its former glory. The chair will be taken to its maker next week where hopefully it will be fixed as good as new.

Roger doesn't remember if he was tipped back on two legs on the stool when all this happened because he knows if he remembers and shares that with me, I will go ballistic. Let's just pretend the stools are wobbly and he was caught off-balance. uh huh...