Be afraid I am having a dinner party

I am hosting a dinner party tonight. Let me repeat, I am hosting a dinner party tonight. I can't cook, my house is a mess, and I entertain rarely. Is disaster imminent? I hope not.

Why am I hosting a dinner party given that being a host is not one of my strengths? The answer is quite simple. As a member of a church, I belong to a group that do supper once a month. The group divides up and six people have dinner on a weekend at someone's house. I have been to a couple of these parties. People have opened their houses to me. People have fed me. Now it is my turn.

I am okay with that and gladly accept my social responsibility. But noble intentions are the paving stones of the road to perdition and that would give even the most pompous fool a moment's pause. What I am having trouble accepting is how unsuited I am to do this particular task. I live alone and I enjoy living alone. When I bought my house, I thought it was an excellent idea, better than living in an apartment because in this case, the landlord is a jerk who doesn't fix anything and the tenant is a slob, who is well on his way to starring in the reality show Hoarders. Since I am both tenant and landlord I get along fine with me.

But tonight I'll open my house to a group of people who have no idea regarding the disorder of my private life. I am a terrible cook, which means I am an okay bachelor cook. Most of the things I eat are fresh fruits, vegetables, the all-to-frequent microwaved baked potato or chicken pot pie, and chicken or fish that is broiled or seared until they reach leathery toughness. Does that mean I am a terrible cook. No! I can say for a fact that no one has ever lived to complain about my cooking. Conceptually a dinner cooked by me is like an airline flight. Every one of my meals that you walk away from is a "good" meal.

But my guest have nothing to fear. They are bringing the salad, dessert, and garlic bread. I am serving lasagne. Once, long ago in the past, when I was married I may have actually learned how to make lasagna. But now that I am divorced, what simple cooking skills I once possessed have gone the way of other lost skills, such as being able to answer the question about fat women in bathing suits or proper foot massage technique. So the meat lasagna is being purchased from Caesar's Italian Delicatessen in Bakersfield. The meatless lasagna is coming from the frozen food case of Albertson's. So as long as everything is heated thoroughly everything will be fine.

But being a bachelor means that I didn't have enough plates and bowls for my guests. When I got divorced, the ex got the house, the car and all the kitchen stuff. So I went to Wal-mart and bought a 4-piece place setting to go with the plastic lawn chair and folding card table that constituted most of the furniture of my apartment. Not wanting my guest to eat off paper plates, I decided to go to Target and buy dinner ware for eight people. That also included place matts and napkins. I've stayed true to myself in the sense that nothing matches, but at least there's enough to ensure that all my guests have something to eat off of. What was really great was that it reminded of the joys of shopping in preparation of a divorce. But it was better there were no lawyers or ex spouses to deal with.

All that remains to do is pick up and clean the house prior to guests arriving. But that is an Augean labor that would give Heracles a moment's pause. It will require me pickup all the crap, mostly paper, and shove it into plastic bags and hide in a spare bedroom until they can be sorted, shredded, recycled or saved. Don't hold your breath. The carpet will have to covered with somekind of smelly cleaning stuff and vacuumed the kitchen and bathroom floors mopped. I should also replace the cracked toilet seat in my main bathroom, but I don't think that is going to happen.

But it's worth it, I guess. Every person needs to be part of a community. All I can hope is that when I open my house, my guests will notice that I am opening my heart as well. If that is the case they hopefully they will ignore the chaos of my solitary life, have an evening of good food and fellowship, and walk away from the dinner. Well that pretty much sums it up. Walk away from the dinner without worrying about being poisoned.

Capitano Tedeschi

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Be afraid I am having a dinner party copyright March 19th 2011 by Jamie Jacks.

Photo credit National Cancer Institute Len Rizzi Photographer retrieved 3/19/2011 from http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/details.cfm?imageid=2547