Saints be praised

Neighbors of mine and friends of RoMo's Joe and Paul hosted a wonderful New Orleans style cocktail party Saturday night, complete with candles, decorations, and bling for the guests (you know how we love a theme).

Paul is from New Orleans and used to be a chef-- now he deals in ports around the Bay Area so many of his friends are foodies and winies. And the food was amazing. As was the the company. I met a great bunch of transplants (unfortunately, all of them with husbands) and felt so much back at home with my southern kindred. And land sakes if my accent wasn't out in full force by the time we left.

This was a Saint Expedite party--the patron saint of procrastination. Got to love that. I can only imagine this party was put off for some time. RMJ told me it had to do with last minute tax filing. Paul told us the local story of how Saint Expedite got his name--unidentified relics shipped from Italy with the box labeled Expedite ("Rush"). Sort of like the Fragile lamp from A Christmas Story. There are several variations of this origin story, all of them merely apocryphal, provided in the Saint Expedite entry on Wikipedia as well as additional information such as the other causes he is patron to.

Paul has been taking Saint Expedite candles to his clients around the Bay Area as a little local color and/or shtick (I used to do the same thing with Goo-Goo's and Jack Daniels on job interviews when I moved out here from Tennessee). When he ran out of candles and tried to ofrder more from his Louisiana connection, he was shocked to find them unavailable. The Pope and his gang have been cracking down on the "lesser" saints and decanonized a lot of them and now, officially, Saint Expedite is just Expedite and there shall be no candles of or praying to. But since when has the Pope stopped any practitioners in the Bayou or the Bay.

Paul found a witch who makes these candles, and in the North Bay no less. They set up a shrine to Saint Expedite, complete with jars of snakes and frogs:

And provided feathered pens and post-its so guest could post their prayers and wishes on the mirror.

I wished for "Fresh breath.... in all things."

Robert, his breath fresh from an afternoon of underwear models at Armani, wished for "Speedo fantasies."

Can you hand me another post-it?


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