entertaining within a cloud

I am not a real eager beaver getting up but I know I must get started. I move around the house, putting things away, tidying up. FFP goes for a workout. When he returns, he says, "I guess you've been watching TV."

"No," I say.

"Well, the Columbia crashed," he said (or something like that) and went on to describe it being on all four of the TVs banked up for the gym rats to watch.

I flip on the TV. Horrible. Still we had a party to give. A party to raise money to help people living with a tragedy of their own, HIV and AIDS.

So, we move furniture so that I can begin setting tables in earnest. The electric piano to the big room. The easy chairs in the place of the piano. The side tables and book rack out of the way. The dining table to the big room. Dominoes of furniture that have to be moved in a certain order.

Then I put on tableclothes, put centerpieces together (FFP is off buying the flowers), put out napkins, glasses, silverware, plates, bread plates, name cards, souvenirs, salt and pepper. There are so many little things to do to set a table. I prepare a table to serve the champagnes from and clear off counters for the cooking to take place.

At some point while FFP is gone, for flowers or groceries for the meal (Gayle has called with a list of last minute stuff), his mother calls. One of his cousins has died of a heart attack. He is six years older than Forrest. There are always these little reminders. The Columbia then this. Reminders of, well, the inevitable you don't know when or where end of this thing we call life.

When I've done all I can until the cook arrives (our bookkeeper and friend Gayle), I go to the club and have a workout. Now, the crash of the Columbia is only on two channels. Another shows some movie about black singers and another shows a program about dinosaurs. The space program (showing pictures of Columbia's last launch and such) looks funny juxtaposed with the dinosaurs brought to animated life.

Home again I get showered and we continue to get things in place. Gayle shows up and I'm assigned to grate cheese and cube honeydew melon and wrap prosciutto around the cubes. Gayle is making the spoon bread and grilling the pork on an electric griddle she brought. Finally, we slip into our better clothes and the guests arrive.

Serving wine and champagne, serving the courses, making sure people have bread and water...it's all a blur. Then we are finished. We serve a few people coffee although they are invited to a dessert party as part of this benefit, at another location. We listen to Rebecca Ryan play and sing and Kevin Ahart sings a bit for us. We applaude the cooking, the singing. I say that we have to keep up the fight, thank the people for choosing our home for their dinner in the event.

Guests gone, I start cleaning up. The hot water runs low and this is enough to make me decide that tomrrow will do for the cleanup. I love entertaining. But it's so tiring. I've been on my feet so much. My feed ache. I take a Motrin and ease off to sleep.