<p>I’d love to go to a swing dance wedding. As for the “no one to dance with” comment. Geez - why aren’t people taught how to be guests? You talk to the other people at your table, you ask them to dance…</p>
<p>And if you are sticklers, couples never sit next to each other except for the first six months of their marriage. 
(What I learn from British mysteries!)</p>
<p>Friend of mine held her wedding (2nd for her) at her house last summer with a formal garden party reception in the back. (It was a small gathering - I was not invited, nor did I expect to be. Also of interest, is they just bought the house a month earlier, so they still didn’t know all neighbors). The neighbor behind her just wandered over in shorts & tshirt to say hi, next thing my friend knows this neighbor’s entire family has crashed the party.</p>
<p>Zoose- <em>raises hand</em></p>
<p>Lice was terrible at my elementary school. Had it all the time. Not pleasant experiences.</p>
<p>H has a college friend who threw himself a birthday party every year, and all his guests were expected to provide the food, liquor, music. He even had a different theme every year, and my H was expected to buy all the music and mix the tapes to go with the theme. This was in the days before iTunes, so H would go so far as to buy whole albums for one song. Happiest day of my life was when this friend moved to a city eight hours away. But, believe it or not, he returns to our town for his birthday every year and expects us to throw him a party and provide the music and food every year. He is 54 years old.</p>
<p>I have done lots of swing and ballroom dancing and have also been to several weddings that were largely swing/ballroom because the brides/grooms met at those dances. I did feel a little sorry for the guests who were not fairly accomplished dancers because they were clearly intimidated by our group of regular dancers. The bride/groom did make arrangements for other music to be played that didn’t cater to the dancers, but I think they still felt a bit overwhelmed.</p>
<p>S and fiancee are having contra dancing at their wedding (known in the UK as English country dance). The bands they are considering also play waltzes, which is typical at a contra dance, and I suspect the two of them will have an ipod playlist for other stuff when the band takes a break.</p>
<p>RE: lice</p>
<p>When we moved from Calif to Alabama I was surprised that K-12 does “Lice Checks” and “Scoliosis checks”. Never heard of any students having lice…guess the “checks” kept things in check. The scoliosis screenings were successful at early detections of spine curvatures.</p>
<p>I am having so much fun reading this thread and happy to see it is still going strong.</p>
<p>RubyTuesday, how rude those people were! I like mom2collegekids’ comeback. </p>
<p>I had the opposite experience, somewhat. I was taught that you should always bring something when you are invited to someone’s home. When my D was 4, she was invited to her “best friend’s” house for a play date, I brought a small box of cookies. Since they were 4, it was customary for the parents to stay at the play date as they were no longer than 2 hours and it was a good opportunity for the parents to socialize.</p>
<p>At snack time, the mom put the cookies out and the girls had some cookies and so did her husband and their other child. When we were leaving she brought me the box to take home. I was confused and told her that it was ok, I had brought the box for her family to enjoy. She then told me that they don’t eat sweets and gave me the box. The girls had been friends for over a year and I saw her eat sweets at birthday parties. I just thought it was rude. She could have just kept the few cookies left in the box and tossed them when I left if she really felt that strongly about it. </p>
<p>I also find it rude when you offer a food and the person says, " I don’t eat that". Just say, “no thank you”: jeez. My SIL 1 does this all the time and one day SIL 2 made a really cute Jello dessert for my bbq. When SIL 2 offered SIL 1, SIL 1 said, “eww, I don’t eat that”. Another rude moment. I wanted to smack SIL 1 on the head and tell her to grow up. I just gave her the “death stare”</p>
<p>lia–the proper response to “ew, I don’t eat that” is “good, more for me!”</p>
<p>gouf- lol!</p>
<p>This thread is too funny!</p>
<p>My son was in kindergarten and had a new friend at school he wanted to invite over for a play date. We have a great group of friends in our neighborhood where he had lots of friends and play dates, but this was his first friend from school. The parent’s phone number wasn’t listed in the directory, so I contacted the teacher asking her to have the parents get in touch with me (since I figured they probably couldn’t give out the number). Mom contacts me and I invite the son over for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. </p>
<p>Mom arrives for the play date with her TWO sons, asks in front of all the kids if the brother can stay and play, too, because they do EVERYTHING together, and he will be left out. Brother is only a year older, we never met him (or mom) before, but I figured what am I supposed to say? Didn’t want the young guy to be told NO or anything . . .</p>
<p>So, I say, “Sure, not a problem.” As soon as I say sure, she whips out a paper with instructions on what to do if brother has a seizure, since he has them frequently! ***???</p>
<p>Also, their number was unlisted because she is ultra-paranoid. Sure, you just met me, but drop your two sons off with me. Sorry, gotta go hide the axe and guns, now!</p>
<p>Boys played nicely, no seizures, and no subsequent invite from us for another play date!</p>
<p>Still remember the time S wanted to have a friend from his 2nd grade class come over after school so we could work on a project. I said ONLY if his parents were called. The friend called his parents who gave carte blanche to kid to go wherever & stay out as long as he liked. Later, when H was trying to take the kid home, he refused to give out his address or phone number. S had to look around & finally dug up the phone number he had scrawled somewhere with the kid’s phone number. His parents were totally unconcerned that kid was with us (whom they had never met) & it was about 8pm and dark. H dropped kid off at his home.</p>
<p>Later that week, kid wanted to have S come over. I asked who would be home supervising & S admitted there would be no one but older sibs (also in grade school). I told S he could have friends come over but could NEVER go to anyone’s home unless parents were home supervising & we spoke with the parents. </p>
<p>H & I were a bit dumb-founded.</p>
<p>Years back, when we were a family of 6, we’d recently moved to a new place. H invited his (Chinese) co-worker and his family (4) for Thanksgiving. I’d also invited my sister (single) and a dear friend of mine and her family (5 people). My friend’s H was working a temp job nearby, and they were living in a small condo w/ 3 kids. She was about 7 mo pregnant, so I figured she’d appreciate being relieved of holiday duties. A couple days before Thanksgiving, my dear friend called to say that another family (of 5)she’d just met at church had invited them for Thanksgiving–I thought she was going to back out of my offer, but then she told me, “I was so sure you wouldn’t mind-- I invited them to YOUR HOUSE!”<br>
Then she went on to tell me how the woman refused at first, but she (dear friend) bragged about how “gracious” I was and "such a good cook, and from a big family, used to lots of people, and if you only knew her, you’d know that it just wouldn’t be a problem AT ALL, etc., " (mostly untrue) and convinced them to come on over! The house didn’t even have a dining room–I think a bunch of the kids were in the foyer. . .(A good time was had by all–they did bring some side dishes-- and we became dear friends with this extra family, too.)</p>
<p>Might as well add this one! Set-up…we have basically height-wise what would be a two or two and a half story house with a sloped roof. The tippy top has a small deck area.
So my son (9 or 10 at the time) comes down from playing upstairs and announces I need to go get his friend who has decided to go over the rail on the top deck. I couldn’t believe it. Fortunately he didn’t fall. Whew! But two minutes later (after me yelling at him) the same kid has come down to main deck area (still very high) and climbed over preparing to jump into the bushes below. Needless to say I immediately piled him in the car and took him home never to return.</p>
<p>Atomom–sometimes you just have to live up to your reputation! Whether it’s earned or not!</p>
<p>We went to an open house hosted by a rich home owner and his uber rich wife. It was for all the contractors and their families who had worked to remodel two apartments into one. It was a big job. Anyway, they had the party on super bowl Sunday, and it was amazing!!! Two bars, all catered amazing food, wait staff, we could explore whole house. These people were also collector of things like Tiffany, fabregee eggs, art, and it was everywhere. At game time, we were still there, but they needed to attend the mayors open house, so we started getting out coats, and the hosts said no, stay, the staff is still here, go into the media room and eat drink and be merry…it was truly gracious and they were so charming.</p>
<p>What was amazing is they didn’t know all workers, from the tilers to the painters to the plumbers, but they knew how hard they all worked and it was the best thankyou</p>
<p>Sure they didn’t know them? All the rich people I’ve met know VERY well everyone who has done work for them down to the gardener. One, they are demanding and two, they don’t want people around whom they DON’T know.</p>
<p>I’m sure. They were of course aroud for the construction, but they didnt check each and every person coming in and they chatted with the workers thru the whole party.</p>
<p>So charming and sweet and not at all snooty or paranoid. And not demanding in the least.</p>
<p>I only meant demanding in the sense of wanting quality work done (so they’re around). Not demanding on a social level. Sounds like a great party!</p>
<p>Couple of years ago my son had bar mitzvah. The synagogue we attend is about 40 minutes away from the house, so he only went to Sunday school and as a result had shorter service held in the evening. The party followed immediately the service and was held at the synagogue.</p>
<p>Several parents of his middle school friends expressed concern that it was inconvenient for them to drive 40 minutes to pick up their children at 11 pm at night. So I hired a school bus to take the kids back to our house after the party where the parents could pick them up.</p>
<p>At some point during the evening, my husband received a message from a boy friend of the mother of one of the girls asking him to drive the girl to his house in the part of the town that is about 45 minutes away from a synagogue and about an hour away from our house. When we tried to call back to inform him that it is not acceptable, the boyfriend did not pick up.</p>
<p>I asked a girl about her situation and it turned out that her father and step mom live not too far away from us. The girl said that it was her mom’s turn to have her and asked to be driven there. I attempted to contact either mom or the boyfriend again, but neither picked the phone. I then presented her with the choice to either be dropped off at the father’s house either at night or in the morning after spending a night in my house. She quickly called her father’s house, who by the way did not offer to pick her up from our house. Instead he said that he will leave the front door unlocked for the girl. I feel sad for her - to have such uncaring parents.</p>