In Her Cups

I'd forgotten how much work it is getting ready to serve lunch, tea and birthday cake! Fortunately I was able to pick up a great ecru embroidered tablecloth at a local estate sale for a mere $2.00. Costco flowers, fancy lemon girly birthday cake with little violets all around, the GOOD towels up in the bathroom--with stern warnings to Mr. T not to even think about drying his hands on them--it was finally already by Saturday morning.

 In fact, I had a few hours before the guests were due to arrive and I was gazing out my window into my recently-deceased neighbor's back yard--and that's when I saw these beautiful white roses just growing there. The more I looked at them the more I could hear them calling my name. The house is empty, Ernie has "passed on" and these poor roses looked so lonely. How beautiful they would look on my kitchen counter. It took about 3 minutes to convince myself that Ernie was looking down from his celestial perch and urging me to climb over the hedge and cut those white roses for my tea party. So I did.

As I was arranging them in the vase I was suddenly overcome by the uncertainties of life and the certainty of death. This was not good. I decanted the wine and decided I'd better have a glass to make sure it was fit to serve. (This is a pointless gesture for friends who add ice cubes to their white wine and secretly wish I'd serve one of those pink wines.)

Well--one glass of wine, stolen roses, contemplating the deep meaning of life I made the mistake of putting on Merle Haggard on the iPod. Now NO ONE can sing about feeling lower than ol' Merle can. Pretty soon, I was in front of my computer playing Minesweeper, drinking a nice zinfandel and  listening to Merle sing about looking for a soft place to fall. And this is how my first guest found me. Fortunately she took over immediately and got me snapped out of it. No more iPod, no more Merle, off with the Minesweeper, reassured me that dearly departed Ernie would highly approve of me pilfering his roses, and we were ready to have the party!

I feel the house has now been christened. Everyone seemed to enjoy the occasion and I enjoyed having so many familiar faces in my home. I just might be up for hosting Thanksgiving this year after all. It could be fun--and what are the chances of setting the oven on fire two years in a row?????