DINNER PARTY ADVICE AND CONFESSIONS
from entertaining expert Merrily Jackson
I love to have dinner parties. I love planning them, shopping for them, cooking for them, and cleaning up after them. If I see the phrase “dinner party” on a page, it jumps out at me. If I overhear it in a conversation, my ears perk up. My favorite scenes in movies are always the dinner party scenes.

Sharing food and laughs and stories with friends, drinking wine by candlelight into the night — it’s the stuff that life is made of. And that’s the point of a dinner party.

There is no one right or wrong way to have a dinner party. But in my 25 years of having them, I’ve gained some wisdom to share with you…

I’m getting a little nervous about my wrinkles!!  It doesn’t seem to bother me when they appear around my eyes or mouth area BUT the other day I was outside in the sun and I happened to look in the side mirror of my car and there they were!!  Wrinkles in the cheek area!  Now I don’t know about anyone else – but when it happens in the cheek area  – it is cause for alarm!!  I think it is pretty much downhill from there!  My heart is pounding just writing about it.

Then I go out on the patio watch the dolphins play in the Gulf of Mexico and think to myself – WHAT A LIFE!  I forget all about it (until I am in the sun again looking in the mirror).   JK

Many years ago a dear friend, 50+ish came to me with an austere and disturbing request. She feared being incapacitated to the point that she would not be able to remove the renegade chin hairs that periodically appeared almost overnight and asked if I would be her “designated plucker”. Gross! I agreed and prayed every night that Ally would stay healthy and ambulatory.

Jean and I were recently talking at the island in her kitchen and the light caught her chin just right for me to see a new sprout—clearly it was on its way to problem status. Flashbacks of my previous “designated plucker” responsibilities fueled my natural urge to comment—“you need to look at that hair on your chin”, I said. Not only did I have the courage to expose it, but when she faced issues with capture and removal I stepped in to actually make the snare. Tweezers in hand I located, made contact and pulled; not as gross as it had seemed 15+ years prior (I have had self provided practice since then).

Our suggestion—make a Chin Hair Treatise with your friends. This is a perfect example of women supporting other women—if your friends are running around with embarrassing escapees from the follicle farm, tell them—wouldn’t you want them to reciprocate? (Anything over 3/16 of an inch qualifies for attack.) We need to watch each others backs—or in this case chins. CSB