Party Tips!

So, Dear Readers, Last night I had a few of my favorite friends over for a small, casual dinner. Only eight of us, including myself. No fancy drinks, shaken or stirred; just wine. No elaborate recipes tried and true, nor the usual and always frightening: never kitchen tested entree. Nope, I was making pizzas and serving them with a tossed salad and my friend Jennifer brought her delicious cranberry/apple pie, served a la mode with coffee. So what's the biggie? Why is having a few friends over for dinner, so much work? And why am I always stressed out during the last hour and a half, ready to bite the head off any dog, cat, child, phone caller or delivery person who diverts my attention or gets in my way? (My son told me that as a little kid, he stayed clear of me if my hair was in rollers! How sad is that?)

People will tell you that your friends like you for you, they don't care if the house is clean. Right! I have learned some short cuts though, and I'm happy to share them with you, as long as you don't judge me too harshly. No. 1: Know where to position the couch pillows so that the dog hair woven into their fabric won't be back lighted by the end table lamps. No. 2: If you can't really clean like you want to, spot clean an area in the entry hall and swab it with Pine Sol, so that guests will inhale the scent of a well scrubbed floor when they arrive and assume that the maid just left. No.3: Candle light. Put candles everywhere. They create a romantic atmosphere and romance is associated with spotless silverware and sparkling wine glasses. No. 4: Serve alcohol immediately and encourage folks to relax and visit so they have a focus that doesn't include tarnished surfaces or dust bunnies. The rest, I'm afraid you're going to have to figure out for yourselves, but I am considering a way to market a product we all can use: a Pine Sol spritz! Think about the possibilities!

Jane

My mother's best friend is dying. It's as strange as if a friend of mine suddenly decided to "up and die". I've known Jane as long as I've known my mother. Sometimes, more "out" of our lives than "in", but that was usually caused by geography more than any thing else. Geography, changed by occupations and opportunities. Jobs taking lives out of Circleville, Ohio, where we all grew from generations of folks who all called each other good friends, as far as I know. My father and Jane's husband, Dave, were the kind of friends who "had each other's backs" during high school and through World War 11, then college and careers that seperated them and finally brought them back into closer proximity. Dave and my dad had adventures and secrets shared only between the two of them, they believed. And maybe that's true. But, my mother and Jane, were the solid rock that kept it all from slipping away. Everyone knew it. And, we all had to think, that Mother and Jane knew whatever there was to know. "So be it, Amen". That's who they were.
I told my daughter, Avery, that Jane was dying. She was sorry to know it, and asked why. "Because, she's ninty", I said. "Her body finally said, 'I'm ninty. It's done!'. " I went to see her twice last summer on my return visits to Columbus. Mother and I took her Frostys. "She really loves them", Mother said. "We must stop and get a Frosty for Jane". They were hard visits. Jane, who had always had the world by the tail, now in an extended care facility, in the extENDed part. Jane, whose toes were always tan in her sandles, and whose chubby face was freckled by sun, now thin and frail in a bed not far from the wasted person of someone else's mother. It was very hard on Mother too. My brothers and I knew that. But, that's what we do. We,who are left, visit those who go before us. We take them Frostys and pretend that they are seeing life the way we are still seeing it. Because they do see and enjoy it through us. We've got your back, Jane. Thank you for you.