We went to the Drinks Party at Emma's last night, as planned. The drinks consisted of red wine, white wine, champagne and orange juice. Naturally, I drank champagne. As much as I love red wine, I really adore bubbly, especially in a party setting. Also, the red wine on offer didn't look too enticing, to be perfectly honest.

The first thing that struck us was how loud it was. Not from music, they had some tasteful Vivaldi playing gently in the background. No, it was noisy from the roar of people's voices.

The next thing we noticed is that all those people had nothing to say. Her apartment was stuffed full of the most boring collection of people I've ever had the misfortune to encounter, especially in one place. Where did they all come from? It is just not possible to come up with that many bores at one go without advertising in the paper or something. How did this happen? Emma's certainly not boring. Her husband.... Well, Emma's husband is relatively boring, but certainly not boring enough to account for the motley assortment of the truly dull populating this event. And the copious amount of booze being put away sadly did not improve matters.

Eventually, we did find some interesting folks to talk to. But not until we'd been lectured on fiscal responsibility regarding consumer credit and the entire business history of some company we'd never heard of and hopefully never will again. They make, if I recall correctly, cargo containers. Or possibly electrical outlets. Insulation? No, I think insulation was a different conversation. Honestly, it's all one big narcoleptic blur.

But we did make some new friends. We had to, really, out of self defense against the dullards surrounding us. Best to stick together, us against them, that sort of policy. With one notable exception-- an Italian man with a notable line of dirty jokes-- they were friends of Emma. Two of them, sadly, were visiting from London and will probably never be seen again. Well, at least not by us.

She had it set up nice. Lots of frou-frou tartlets and so forth, plus a really nice seafood risotto. Well, it was more of a paella, but it tasted good all the same. And scrumptious desserts, including a chocolate pear thingy that was to die for. Emma being Emma, she had also rented coat-racks and a diminutive maid, complete with demure black dress and frilly white apron, who ran around filling up the champagne glasses of anyone who was less than half-full. Which, naturally, added to the general merriement.

We had to smoke out on the balcony. Elvis hates that, and the fact that it drizzled most of the evening didn't help much, either. He put his cigarette butts into the pot plants out of defiance. Before we left, I collected them when he wasn't looking and threw them over the railing into the courtyard. Emma is, after all, my friend. Let someone else clean them up.

In the end, after the bores had departed, we ended up drinking Grand Marnier (Emma and I), cognac and limoncello while playing a game called Cranium. In looking up that link, I find that apparently I myself have reviewed this game. Wrong-O, Mary Lou. it's obviously another Kat, some poor twit that considers this travesty of a board game to be the vital ingredient in an evening of hilarity. She also considers it to be hip and outrageously fun. You know, I thought "hip" wasn't, well, "hip" these days, but I suppose I could be wrong.

No, the question I have is Whose Cranium Is Responsible For Vomiting Up This Stupid Game? It's one of those that tries to be all things to all people and fails miserably every step of the way. The directions were needlessly complex and incomprehensible. It was a team-type of boardgame (which was the only good thing about it), and a combination of trivial pursuits, pictionary, charades, name-that-tune, and God knows what else. There were also spelling questions, and questions requiring you to make little sculptures out of "cranium clay" for your teammates to puzzle out. It was a disaster, but we still managed to have some fun. Hilarity, no, but fun. The booze helped, without a doubt. At about two am we abandoned the game by mutual decision. We never did figure out how you were supposed to win.

On the whole, a very nice evening indeed.

Every so often, I read about strange and bizarre google hits that the writers of other diaries receive.

I, on the other hand, get google hits on questions like "where can I buy colored marshmallows?" Which I actually have an answer for, and is no mean feat in Italy. I'm actually running a public service here, believe it or not. In fact, buying plain white marshmallows is a trickier proposition in Milan, but I digress.

The point is, I get googled for useful things, things people actually want to know. I bring this up because yesterday I got googled for "italian travesties." So I went to check it out, because I am full of curiousity and wondered what other Italian travesties people are writing about.

See, it's an interesting search. A reasonable search. A search undertaken for a purpose. Clearly not, for example, someone playing the google game. Which is rather a shame, because I am apparently the only person who writes about Italian travesties.

Just me.

If the poor sucker had been playing the google game, they would have won.

Look Ma, more irony.