Staff Holiday Brunch

I invited my staff to my house for a holiday brunch. I intend to have us play games, eat and go back to work. Get the job done, damnit. All that jazz.
I got home from work, preparing to bake Christmas bread from scratch, prepare three kinds of Quiche and clean the house, plus wrap a few things for my 12 guests.
When I arrived home, the Christmas tree that we worked all night putting up was face down on the hardwood floor.
Face down. bulbs broken, strings of lights hanging loose.
Great. Now, not only did I have to prepare for brunch, I had to repair a fallen soldier. Neat.
Dennis made it home. How did that tree fall down? We have no idea. We put it back up in the stand and hope now it will stay there this time.

Anyway, Dennis, the new Dennis was busying about helping me. Yes... Helping me. Amazing me. He was hanging around the kitchen. Spying I think. I have a feeling he wants to steal my recipes. The nerve.
Well, anyway. He's kind of watching now, I can tell. He bought himself a slow cooker. This was a big step. He now owns his own recipe books and brags about his split pea soup. Who is this man? What form of alien life overtook his body? When I was with Grandma Ethel this weekend, he had Shammai and baked cookies. They didn't turn out, but at least he tried. At 51, he baked cookies for the first time. I am proud of him for that. But still wonder what he's up to.
That's fitting, why not ask, "What are you up to?"
I wonder what alien nation has taken over his body. It's ok. I like it.
Anyway... we were listening to a very loud DVD of Eric Clapton Concert which we both love.
Mary J Blighe was singing "I should have left him a long time ago.. Not gonna cry, Not gonna cry, he's not worth the tears.... " you get the drift.
Dennis is vacuuming, I am food processing and Mary J is crooning away in harsh gutteral tones. Dennis hollers, "she sounds like a banty hen."

I said, "What, she sounds like Benny Hinn?
We went at this for quite some time. What? Benny Hinn?
Louder finally he shouts anunciating clearly this time, "I said, A banty hen."

Finally he turned off the vacuum.
"I said Banty Hen, not Benny Hinn. Sp this is what the next forty years holds for us."

I thought I heard Benny Hinn, the TV evangelist.
Either way it works, she sounds like both and we had a good laugh.
Later, when we settled in. He asked, "How do you make chocolate chip cookies?
See, he is trying to steal my recipes.
(more power to him.)
And that is what I am up to.