I invited the exchange students over for dinner on Saturday. David was back in Ireland for a bit, so Anssi, a non-student living in residence, took his place. The other two, as you know, are Alena from Czech and Fabian from Alaska.

I set a reminder on my cell phone for 5:30 pm, in plenty of time to prepare for dinner at 7. Unfortunately, I fell asleep reading Dan Brown's Deception Point and woke up to my dinner guests knocking at the door. Talk about a power nap.

I was supposed to be making a chicken wok (chicken walk?), but as I examined the bag of frozen "Paella," I realized my mistake: I should have bought actual "Wok Vegetables." This stuff was wok vegetables with sauce, chicken, shrimp, and rice: serve fried. Since my plan was to prepare it all from scratch, this basically destroyed any shred of balance and respectability the resulting dish would have.

To sum up: dinner was a disaster. Thank goodness I had such good-humoured guests. They even refrained from forking me when I told them the chicken balls expired that day. Afterwards, Fabian and Alena showed their appreciation by putting on a diversionary display of strength and prowess: an Indian leg wrestling challenge. Finally, Anssi suggested they return to their place for the obligatory Saturday night imbibing of beverages bearing no less than 4.7% on the label. As they went out the door with a chorus of thank yous, despite having had a pleasant evening, I couldn't shake off the sense of... relief. Entertaining is one of the skills I need to seriously work on in this lifetime. The stress!

As it happened, I'd received a surprise phone call during dinner. A friend invited me to join him and another guy in a late-evening fishing trip on a nearby lake. Of course, I accepted. The technique we used was an aquatic version of pitlamping: you lurk in a shallow, smooth section of water and pole the boat around slowly with a lamp illuminating the lakebed beside you. If buddy in the prow sees a big pike, he skewers it with a giant fork. We didn't see any. But it was an awesome experience. The night sky was bedecked with jewels and there was a veil of mist on the cold lake. We shot the breeze and had a good time. The night finished with a sauna, which is, take it from me, just about the perfect way to end a long day.

-BC