First of all does anyone else want to make a really bad joke when you hear the news discuss if Oscar Pistorius is a flight risk?

Also, when you leave a tip at the Starbucks or Coffee Bean counter do you wait until the barista can see you put the tip in the tip jar?

Now, that is out of the way…….  I have been having an Oscar party since my friends Michael, Joe, Deanna and my Mom and I watched together in 1980.  That is except for the last nine years when I did not have an Oscar Party because I quit drinking.  I haven’t had many social events the last nine years in my home at all.  In fact three of my best friends have never even been to our “new” house and we have lived here for two years.  It was difficult for me to have parties because they had so heavily revolved around drinking.  Particularly the Oscar Party which was dubbed, “Chile and Champagne Party, just like Chasen’s!”.  The morning of the Academy Awards the Moet and Chandon truck would back up to my house and unload most of the champagne in the greater Los Angeles area while I stirred up a huge pot of chile.  I think the parties were a lot of fun.  At least, I am told they were.  But, after Chicago won the Academy Award for best picture in 2004 I decided it was time to hang up my drinking career. (no connection)  Hence, no more fun for anyone.  I wish I could say it hasn’t taken almost a decade for me to want to be the life of the party again, but it has.  It takes awhile to reprogram and not associate everything you do with alcohol.  For me it was never what do you want for dinner, steak? Mexican? Italian?  It was,  what do you want for dinner, martini? margarita? wine?.  It gives all new meaning to the term liquid diet.  I think I may finally be inching toward a little bit of recovery.

The truth is it is unfair for me to deprive people of my company.  I’m pretty sure no one has had any fun waiting for me to return to the social scene. So good news!  Last night I had a few friends over and it marked my triumphant (albeit sober) return to the party scene.  The party may not have been as exciting as the year I did a wardrobe change every fifteen minutes culminating with me taking a short “nap” face down on the stairway clutching my flower bottle of Perrier Jouet and waking up occasionally to slur loudly, “Steve Martin is the best host ever!” Thankfully it turns out I do not need alcohol to be witty, vivacious, and alluring.  I am perfectly capable of being that self centered and annoying completely dead sober. The best part is waking up this morning to a clean house as opposed to the old days of waking up on the couch in a house that looked a little like Led Zeppelin’s hotel room with Andrew tripping over wine bottles and saying “Please wake up and take me to school, Mommy!”  Also, I remember everything that happened so I don’t have to call anyone and ask who won.
Who is the winner in 2013?  You tell me.