Company

I don't have much of a social life. Working full time at night seems to suck my networking-with- friends-time down some big swirly hole.

And yet amazingly our house has been run over with boys lately. An old friend dropped by and two of nephews have been to visit -- all in the last thirty days. We've hit the company jackpot! And I do mean company. Charlie has determined that despite our culture's recent trend toward entertaining -- we have company over.

If one is to entertain I would think a dining room would be required and since we turned ours into a TV room we're back to the category of "company's coming!." We have TV trays -- old rusty ones that have to be duct taped together.

I'd like to be entertained by May Sarton. In her journals she writes how she picks flowers from her garden and makes lobster salad and serves champagne and celebrates birthdays when folks come to her house by the sea. May's company usually arrives stylishly late and she waits for them on the terrace while lying on the chaise lounge looking over the calm sea. She breathes peace and basks while waiting for her guests.

Me? Company comes over and I'm naked in the shower and I make them close their eyes while I dash to the kitchen with a towel wrapped around me so I can brush my teeth in the only working sink in the house.

There are a few luxuries here at the D street place. We have cloth napkins. I've been busy hand sewing a new batch. They are soft cotton with a pretty flower pattern. And ketchup. We have plenty of ketchup. When Charlie and I first got together he asked that I never fuss at him if he left a glob of the red stuff on his plate. His daddy used to do that to him and he didn't want anyone else to do it. I've bitten my tongue more than once but we can afford it. It's not like he insists on the name brand stuff like my father did. He would only eat Heinz. If you don't like ketchup we've got bar-b-que sauce and Katee might even share some of that ranch dressing that comes in the little veggie trays she's become addicted to.