The "Not A Party"

Tonight our neighbor invited us to what we thought was a party at one of her Trini friend's houses.  After a long day at work, my roomie decided she wasn't up for it, so it was just our neighbor and me.  When we showed up, the woman was surprised to see us, but not as surprised as we were when we discovered that there was no party, just an invitation to come over and hang out.

After a lot of embarrassed apologies, we settled in to wine and cheese out on the back patio, where I was introduced to hot pepper jelly.  This, combined with cream cheese and spread on a cracker, made for a ridiculously delicious treat, and I made a spectacle of myself wolfing down as many as I could, stopping only when all the crackers were gone.

As I sat there enjoying the conversation immensely, I realized I was now a part of this community of independent women, all of whom had incredibly interesting stories (for example, I found out that our neighbor had grown up in Alaska, and this new woman used to be an airline attendant), and all of whom were looking out for each other.  It was very comforting.

Until I forced the former airline attendant to share her most terrifying flight story with me.

Morbid Fascination, I believe it's called.