A Dinner Party

When we lived in Victoria we had the cutest little dining room table - a funky round two-seater that fit nicely into our little basement apartment. When the two of us ate at it our knees almost touched. I liked it very much.

Of course when we moved and gave everything away, we had to say goodbye to our cute little round table. We're here now, and we sit at a larger table that was donated to our household by my parents, who didn't have room for it any more when they moved. Our new table is still round, but now we can seat four people instead of two.

I thought that would suit us fine. Our little two-seater in Victoria served us well and I never felt we needed anything bigger. The four-seater we have now is nice, but surprisingly, I feel the need for a bigger table. It's not that we're more social (well, okay, maybe we are a bit but that's not the point). It's that, in Victoria, we usually went out with friends. We went merrily to brewpubs, bistros, cafés, diners, and restaurants. Here, everyone goes to everyone elses' houses. People host each other. We can host two comfortably for a meal, and that's not enough. Going out is a feeble option. We can go to the pub and be gawked at by the locals who will all gossip about us the next day, or we can go to the restaurant at the local hotel, but for lunch only and not supper, and not on Saturdays. And that's only if we have cash, because no credit/debit cards are taken there.

Our dining room is roomy, but the table, shockingly, is not. That, on top of my lack of talent in the kitchen, is putting us at a distinct disadvantage - I mean, how often can I eat at other people's houses before they start thinking to themselves: "Gee, Mark and Julie never invite me over. They must

- be snobs
- not like me
- be weirdos."

I'll have you know that only the last option is true.

So, that having been said, we went to Chani's house for supper on Friday. She was out in her vegetable garden when we arrived, so we meandered into the back yard to see her, but got side-tracked saying hello to Emmylou Hairless instead.


Chani's husband, the intrepid Captain D., got home soon after and we got down to business.


On the menu that night was polenta and sun-dried tomato cutlets. I can never guess what Chani will whip up next in the kitchen, but it's always good. This was no exception!


We were happy to see Nay arrive exactly when dinner was ready. She filled her plate, sat down, and promptly got a call from a client wanting to pick up their dog from the kennel, so had to go back home within five minutes of entering Chani's house. We all groaned - Nay had had a very long and frustrating day already, and it looked like it wasn't going to end any time soon. She reappeared twenty minutes later, frowning. She couldn't find the keys to the dog kennel and had had to send the client away empty-handed!

She searched Chani's house and driveway briefly and left again with a plan to call her husband to come home from work and help her get into the kennel. The last I heard, they had to break in. We all felt really bad - it was a crappy end to what had been a long, disheartening day for her.

The evening was very pleasant aside from Nay's misadventures. The food was great and the weather was mild. We wandered around outside looking at trees, flowers, and the river, and Captain D. decided to climb up onto his roof.


Mark went up there too. Whatever, boys.