Plans were made earlier in the week to have Gwyneth and this guy over for dinner tonight, which meant ignoring the whole "people are coming to our house to eat" issue until this morning, when it became imperitive we sort out the wreck that is our house, because our friends appreciate it when we don't serve them dinner balanced on a stack of old magazines.

Anyway,there I was, trying to scrape the aquired grime of the last week off the stove, and the 409-soaked paper towel was kind of making a deep-sounding squeek against the cooktop, which made Adam laugh out loud, because it sounded exactly like a fart, and because we're such mature adults, he requested more and I complied, complete with the appropriate "Aaaaah" face.

Stove farts. They let us get married, own property and operate automobiles. Y'all, that is just wrong.

Later, we did a Target run, and I nearly ended up buying a $20 framed Buddah because I was freaking out, shouting "Ong Bak! Ong Bak! This is why it hasn't rained since September! He's angered! His head's only selling for twenty bucks!"

Adam swears up and down this is just another reason why he married me. "What other girl would nearly get me banned from Target because of a framed Buddah head?"

Though maybe I have a point. It was a lovely 65 degrees and sunny today; warm enough to have the sliding glass door open while I scrubbed the kitchen floor, warm enough to drive around with the top down on Bucky. It's early January in the northern hemisphere and it's 65 degress. Somewhere, some deity is a bit peeved. Or maybe just cold. I understand cold.

And then, the sun was heading down and I had two men take over the couch and the television and demand dinner. I ended up making baked ziti, which has become my signature, go-to dinner dish. Also, because I know Tom's a big fan and will turn himself inside out for leftovers. And if he has leftovers, that means that my fridge is free of a half-dozen dead ziti Ziplocks. Everyone wins.

Gwyneth came over just before I tucked the ziti into the oven and we sat around waiting for the cheese to brown. Tom told Marine stories. Adam and I alternated crappy neighbor/bad vacation stories. I broke out a 2004 Foxen Pinot Noir and poured liberally. More narratives came tumbling out. The ziti came out. We sat down at the cleaned off kitchen table Gwyneth found for us a couple of years ago. There was so much food, I pulled out both leaves. More wine, more stories peppered with good-natured ribbing.

I will admit straight out, I was secretly proud of all of it: the food, the friends, the conversation, that even with the stove farts and Ong Bakking through Target, we could pull off something as grown up as a dinner party with our friends. Also? I remembered to buy candles and light them, and I finally broke out the Nambe platter someone gave us when we got married.

But it's Sunday night and everyone has real jobs that require meetings in the morning, or clean clothes, or a combination of the two, so the party broke up just before 7:30. Between this, and Tom's suggestion last week that we go for sushi right at five, I'm starting to wonder just when time accelerated and we aged by 40 years.

It's either fart jokes or the early bird special. Where's the happy medium?