From left to right; Scotty, me, Peter and Clinton
Well, you see, it started like this. I wanted to have a party, and Thanksgiving was past, and it was too early for Christmas. I knew the date I wanted to have my little shindig, as I was housesitting at the esteemed A.Gordon's place, and thought, "Hmmm. What holiday or festive event happened on the seventeenth of November?" So I looked it up and found that Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen herself, had her coronation some 448 years ago in 1558, at the ripe old age of twenty-five. That seemed reason enough to have a party. After all, they celebrated her ascension to the throne every year of her reign, and even did so a dozen years after she died!
The timing seemed perfect. I was steeped in Elizabethan reading, as I was doing research on Christopher Marlowe for something I wanted to write about him. My mind was already in the era, so all seemed perfect. I invited everybody I wanted to invite, that is to say, everybody I found fun and enjoyable to be with. I never invite people for political reasons, the way I see so many others do. I invite whom I like. Period. And a lot of them came, which was delightful. Aside from a lot of pretenders to the throne, there was only one real queen that night, and she was asleep in her armchair by the fire, oblivious to everything. (Well, there was another Queen there that night in spirit, but she was busy drinking wine in France....)
At any rate, it was a lovely evening with all sorts of people there, all the ones I love to hang out with and laugh with, and it dawned on me again, how lucky I was to have a such a fabulous bunch of friends. Not even Good Queen Bess could claim that.
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