Lovely, Lovely Food

I'm not a food snob (I love chili dogs too much), I'm not a gourmand (I'm from Arkansas and I have a weak palette), but I am a foodie.  I love trying out new things to eat and also love going into my kitchen and making a mess trying out a new recipe.  Hence my having more junk in the trunk than the lady that sells boot-legged Tupperware at one of the big street markets out of the back of her car.  I also have a hard time saying no.  Patience, folks, there is a tie-in, however lame it may be.  I feel bad for people and usually offer to help before that one part of my brain screams out, "Are you freakin NUTS?!?"  It usually puts me in a bind and I grump around until the task/chore is accomplished. Girl got invited to a birthday party last minute.  I knew it was a last minute invite because she told me it was.  I called to accept the invite and asked how many kids would be coming.  Plus Girlie Girl, ten.  Yikes.  How many adults will be there?  Um, yeah, just the one mom.  I offered to bake cupcakes or something similar to help out.  Somehow over the course of our German conversation, I unknowingly volunteered to be the other pair of hands.  Oy.
I love my children.  I love my friends' children.  Random kids?  Not so much.  The party was supposed to last three and a half hours.  Fantastic! (That was sarcasm.  Lots of dry, dripping in contempt sarcasm.)  Girlie Girl also insisted that the party was a costume party.  No note of that on the invite, but, whatever, what do I know?  I'm just the mom.  I let her put on her pink, sparkly cowgirl hat (Herr Hubby looks quite fetching in it when he's goofing off) and her cowgirl outfit, Wild Child in a too big for her princess dress with matching ten pounds of accessories and we set off.  We pull up to a house that Martha Stewart would feel underdressed in. Seriously.  Better Homes and Gardens house of the year type home.
 Of course my kids were the only ones in costume.  Wasn't it obvious?  No matter.  They were cute.  Introductions are made and I realize my messy air-dried hair and make-up-less self feels a bit out of place but thankful I had made some effort with my outfit.  Five minutes into getting settled (Wild Child checking out the digs and forming a plan of massive destruction, more than likely) and a little girl (six years old) the size of a sycamore tree (okay, so she came up to my shoulders, only.  I'm five foot two-ish) comes up to me, smiles, and says, "You talk funny." I was this close, this close to replying, "Well, you smell funny and you're huge!" Instead, I smiled back, and simply said, "It's because I'm a foreigner and German is my second language, not my first."  "My mommy says foreigners need to stay home, they take all the good jobs."  Once again, this close, this close to replying, "Well you're mother is a twat who should keep her mouth shut."  Instead, "How lovely for your mother.  OH LOOK!  Birthday cake!"
The hostess was very nice and, upon closer inspection, also make-up-less.  Her kids are the same age as mine, both girls.   Things went pretty smoothly with us  making chit-chat.  Once the kids were settled, we grabbed coffee cups and I found out the following information:

1. She lived in Britain for seven years and has fantastic English.  I still spoke German with her out of respect (and ease) for the kids.
2. She's a foodie but does not have the same amount of junk in her trunk, probably because she has super-fast metabolism.
3. She's really nice.

After a while, we were going through her cabinets, checking out the different pots, pans, spices, books, etc that she has.  I was offering tips on American and Cajun cuisine.  She was talking about her passion for French cooking.  Had I not found a kindred spirit in the eating area, this birthday party would have been sheer torture.  Aside from the one ginourmous kid with awkward opinions (so charming), the party went smoothly.  I walked away with a mental file packed full of cooking tips and a new contact for recipe trades, coffee, and etc.  I was ashamed of myself, thinking because she lived in such a lovely house she had to be a rude bitch.  I get riled up all the time when people make assumptions and stereotypes about me based on my being an American. I guess I need to learn to be better about it.  Bad girl, bad, bad, girl!