No spouses were harmed during the course of this dinner

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous going into Saturday night's dinner event. Within about 5 minutes of getting there, I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. The Museum looked fabulous, and our 100 or so people was the perfect number for the space available. Peggy (the events coordinator at the Museum) was there the entire time, so we knew that we could go to her if there were any problems.

As people started arriving, they looked around a bit and everyone expressed what a beautiful place it is, and a great place to have the event. After an hour of hors d'oeuvres and mingling, I was starting to feel more relaxed that everything was going to go well. The head honcho (Mike) at Ken's workplace sat by us again--he sat by us at the Huckabee speech--so that was kind of cool. Mike and a couple of others (including Ken) said a few words, then we proceeded to the buffet line in an orderly and controlled manner. (Ha ha!) About the only question left was whether or not the buffet dinner would be good. Buffets can be tricky things...they can sit there too long and get overdone and dry. Not the case here. They did a great job, and the vegetable lasagna was nice and cheesy, the rosemary chicken was tender and not dried out, and the roast beef was very flavorful. And I loved the roasted veggies, with lots of squash and zucchini, but then I love stuff like that.

I was so pleased with everything, and I'll be writing some very nice letters. I heard from Ken a little bit ago, and he said that there was a conference call about the PAC, and someone made the comment that they feel sorry for whoever plans this event next year, because it will be hard act to follow. Sweeeeet! It was just really neat to be able to have this in South Bend, and have everyone who attended enjoy the Museum and appreciate it so much. It made me proud to be a South Bender.

After we left the Museum, a few of us met at Sean O'Casey's, a replica of an Irish pub downtown. It was a fine end to a fine evening, and I think I can say that a good time was had by all!

Oh, and for those of you wondering about whether or not anyone perished while eating what Ken and I came to call the Mushrooms of Death...I'm happy to report that were no fatalities due to the ingestion of verboten food items! (And the Mushrooms of Death were to die for! Lots of cheese melted on top. Yummm.) But when people were arriving, Ken and I were out at the registration table, so we were there when that particular couple got there. As they were looking for their name tags, the guy said "I'm so-and-so," and this is what his wife said: "He's the one whose wife has all the food allergies!" If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'. Why on earth would anyone define themselves that way? I found that sort of bizarre and sad. However, I encountered the guy in the exhibits after dinner, and he said, "Thank you for taking good care of my wife." I thought that was very kind of him to say, and I'm sure it's really difficult to deal with such severe allergies. I just hope they can kind of take it down a notch, because I still think it's a little presumptuous to expect a buffet dinner to conform to your dietary needs, let alone calling the caterer about it. As a couple of commenters noted, it's probably better to eat something at home and then eat what you can at such a dinner. (And the cost of this dinner was picked up by the head honcho--no one had to pay for it.)

Speaking of not paying, the open bar was a big hit! (wink)

Ken has made an entry about the evening, and put up a slideshow of everyone enjoying themselves. My slideshow focuses on the venue and the cars. There are several shots of the Packard Predictor, because I just LOVE that car! And Laurel, I think you'll see that I'd need a pretty large pantsuit to be able to fit the Predictor in there! Ha!

One final thing. A couple of people commented on Ken's entry about how, based on our picture together, he must be really tall...or else I'm really short. The answer is...both! Ken is fairly tall, at around 6' to 6'1", and yes, I'm very short, topping out at not quite 5'. And in that picture, I even had 2-inch heels on!