[Magdalen] Throwing a Cr*ppy Dinner Party

[Scott Knitter]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 3:53 PM, James Oppenheimer-Crawford
<oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mind you, a lot of folks gain a tremendous joy from putting together a
> feast and then get incredible joy from seeing others enjoying it. And
> there's *nothing* the matter with that.  Many of my earliest memories of
> celebrations were of this sort.

I've enjoyed some memorable ones that had me in awe of how effortless
it seemed; of course, it was huge work beforehand, and the host(s) set
a fine, relaxed atmosphere at the time of the event. Can't be that
relaxed unless all the preparation was done well.

To me, the message of the "Crappy Dinner Party" is not so much an
actively bad "Come on over to our dump of a house and have some of
whatever garbage we can dig out of our freezer!" than "We really would
like to see our friends and won't wait for a perfect time to do
something fancy." Not really "crappy," but comfy and forgiving of
imperfection. Enjoying the real-life everyday style.

What's the proverb about not letting the perfect prevent the good? I'm
not remembering the wording. Don't let the (perhaps temporary)
impossibility of achieving perfection cancel out the striving for the
good, and the pretty good, and even the sloppy but enjoyable in its
own way.


-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA