He’ll drink to that

I CAN’T DRINK wine. Seriously, what am I doing in California, the world’s largest vineyard, if I can’t toss back a couple of glasses without requiring a 175-pound aspirin the next morning? (Like many Angelenos, I’m a big believer in taking medication in direct proportion to my own body weight.)

“I can’t drink wine,” I tell my young bride.

“It’s not that you can’t drink wine,” she says. “It’s that you can’t drink too much wine.”

Here’s what happened, I think. I was feeling a little nervous about a dinner party we were hosting, nothing serious, just a butterfly or two in the upper intestine. Outwardly, I seem the calmest of men, but inward there are butterflies flapping and puppies romping and the flutter of the occasional hawk. Nothing serious. Just Irish party angst.

In 20 minutes, Karen and Brian were supposed to come over for the first time. They’d invited us out, then we countered with an offer to host.

Which seemed reasonable at the time, till I started thinking about our house, with the toddler’s Legos everywhere and the sports bras draped over the kitchen chairs and the dogs always circling the kitchen island in search of scraps. It’s no place to live, let alone hold a dinner party. Everywhere you step, there’s one of those chewy rawhide dog toys. Still, we do the best that we can.

“You know what we should do?” I ask my wife while surveying the scene.

“Move?”

“We should float a bunch of candles in the pool,” I say excitedly.

I saw that in a photo recently, a party where there were 100 candles floating in the pool. It was a splendid effect, like a harbor at nightfall in St. Barts. Or that buttery glow you get at Dodger Stadium at twilight, just after batting practice.

“Um, we don’t have a pool,” my wife said.

“We don’t?”

“No.”

“Then where have I been swimming in the morning?” I ask.

“The sink?” she answers.

I could swear we have a pool. Anyway, we weren’t able to put candles in the pool, but my wife lights them everywhere else around the house -- on the mantel, in the bathroom, in the living room -- till the place resembles a gigantic pumpkin.

“Happy birthday to you,” the toddler starts to sing.

“It’s Dad’s birthday?” asks his big brother.

“No,” I say.

“Happy birthday, dear Daddy ... “ they all sing.

Finally, the dinner party begins. I know it’s begun because the beagle is howling. The beagle has a voice like Pat Buchanan, all rasp and discontent, the timbre of a heavy box being dragged across concrete. (Tip: A dog howling like Pat Buchanan is an excellent way to announce a dinner party.)

In the bathroom, the toddler is unfurling an entire roll of toilet paper in preparation for guests. Back in the living room, my wife softly curses the CD player, which accepts the discs just fine but then doesn’t produce any music. It’s sort of like the airlines these days. They take your money and give you almost nothing in return. You get the idea.

Anyway, the party goes well. We grill up some shish kebabs, twice as many as needed. Making too much food is an Italian custom my Italian wife brought over from the old country,

Florida.

I start with a beer while everybody else sips wine. I explain that I’ve been looking forward to this particular beer since noon, savoring in advance the carbonated burn of the Rolling Rock on my tongue. Is it just me, or does the American workweek seem to be getting longer? If present trends continue, in a few years I’ll be working 90 hours a week. For free.

So, I explain how I spent the day fantasizing about this first kiss of beer, then drove home and smelled something I’m pretty sure was my car engine burning up. Wouldn’t that be a magnificent way to cap a long week, with the engine imploding on a Friday ride home? Sniff, sniff, yep something’s burning all right. My paycheck.

And then it’s Brian and Karen’s turn, a fun couple with lots of good stories. Brian explains how, when they first arrived in L.A., they lived for free above a mortuary, and in return he’d have to help move the bodies, sometimes at 3 in the morning, 1-2-3 lift. Try getting back to sleep after that, Brian suggests.

“I don’t sleep as it is,” I say.

“He doesn’t,” confirms my wife.

So I open the second bottle of the nice Chardonnay, not too sweet, a little leathery, but in a good way. And when everyone else is having dessert, I’m still pounding down the Chardonnay -- 1-2-3 lift -- and watching the Dodgers put the cherry on another important win.

How’s that for dessert? How’s that for a hangover-inducing Friday night?

Honey, where do we keep the morphine?

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine @latimes.com or at myspace.com/chriserskine.