Today’s sermon was titled, “The Table For All”, and the scripture was Luke 14:7-24, the parable of the banquet. You know, the one where the rich dude and his lady get stood up by all their friends (“I can not come to the banquet, don’t trouble me now. I have married a wife. I have bought me a cow…” You know the song, right?) and then they got mad and invited all the street people to come and fill the hall instead. Mr. Handsome was the rich dude and I was his lady, but they didn’t call us that in the church bulletin. Our title was “Masters of Ceremony”.

The limousine was parked out front, just a prop, and there was a long table up front, set with formal china, a bouquet of flowers, roses at every place setting, and then platters of bagels, fruit, cookies, etc. After the sermon, the worship leader (who had arranged for everything) came out in his baker’s hat, laid out the food, and then called for everyone to come forward and eat. Mr. Handsome (who was really handsome, despite the fact that his tux coat was too short in the sleeves) and I got up and went to either end of the table. Some of the congregants were dressed as bums and they immediately leaped to their feet and excitedly ran to the table and started scarfing the food. Everyone else came forward. Mr. Handsome and I loaded plates and walked up and down the aisles, offering more food to the guests. Cheerful chaos reigned.

Thus the reason for all the preparations.

Yesterday I painted my toenails. That’s a really big deal, since I hardly ever sit still, because The Baby Nickel is unable to sit still, long enough to get them painted. It’s a butch job, but that’s okay—they’re red.

I treated my face to an Aztec Mud Mask. A chunk of it fell off my chin and landed in the frosting that I was making. Fortunately, the beaters were not whirring, so I just quickly lifted it out. Shh. Don’t tell. (Calm down! It was just mud!)

My Girlfriend Sheri altered a gown for me (my ribs expanded, okay?). The gown is dark blue and has long, gauzy thingies that flow down behind my back. It reminds me of a gown that Hamlet’s mother might have worn. I call it my Shakespeare dress.

I got the gown dry-cleaned (it still had splotches of food on the front of it—food from a meal that took place 11 years and 11 months ago) for 14 dollars and 83 cents.

Mr. Handsome picked up a tux. He still needs to find black socks.

I borrowed shoes from my Girlfriend Annmarie. Gold sandals with rhinestones all along the top strap.

A couple days later I went back to my Girlfriend Annmarie’s house and ransacked her jewelry selection. (I no longer call her my girlfriend—I now refer to her as my fashion consultant—do you have one of those?) I came away with a gorgeous old-fashioned necklace (I want to steal it, but I will not), a gold bracelet, and a pair of screw-on earrings (why do they remind me of a torture device?). I gave her a loaf of fresh bread which her little boy promptly kissed and sucked on (my kid’s not the only one!!!).

At this very moment my parents are enroute to our house. They will be taking care of the children for us.

There will be a limousine parked out in front of the church.

By now, you’re probably bouncing around in your chair wondering whatever could be the reason for such extensive preparations?

Church. That’s all. We’re just going to church this morning, like we do (most) every Sunday.

Can you guess what the sermon is on? Here’s a hint: It’s a parable.

Bye, now. I gotta go shave my legs, wash and blow-dry my hair, put on make-up, and slip into my finery.

It is not a pleasant place to be.

Peaches have such a great reputation, too: “Peaches ‘n Cream”, “Life is just peachy”, “Life is just a bowl of peaches” (oh wait, that’s cherries).

I do like peaches, I really do. I have memories of squatting by the kiddie pool at our Maytown house, biting into the fuzzy fruit, juice dripping down my chin, elbows, knees (we were by the kiddie pool for a reason). Peach jam, peach tart with mounds of whipped cream, canned peaches spooned over granola, homemade vanilla ice cream with frozen, mashed, sugared peaches—it’s all very good. But that’s just the eating part. Putting them up is a different story.

Peaches have a nasty tradition of confounding me. First of all, it can be tricky to get the peaches to surrender up their pits. The peaches have to be perfectly ripened and not at all mushy. (If they are still green, I have to stab the peach with my knife, and, using all the strength that I can muster up in my fingers and wrists, attempt to pry the rock-hard, woody, rough pit out of the peach. I often end up bruising my knuckles on the pit or on the sides of the kitchen sink because my hands spastically fly apart when the pit finally does fall free. Then I come very close to screaming curses. If the peaches are at all mushy, then I just have a bunch of mush, which, while not very appealing, has the ability to be jammed.)

Second, peaches have the ability to rot quickly. This is something I still have not learned, though you’d think I’d have learned my lesson after the Peach Disaster of 2001 (or was is 2002?). That year, Mr. Handsome and I put up a pile of peaches, to the tune of about 50 quarts. This was also the year that my generous mother-in-law gave us the outdoor cookstove from Lehman’s Hardware. The stove had two, very powerful burners and we zipped along cheerily, turning out dozens of jars filled with golden peach slices. But, over the course of the next several days, our jars of peaches began to unseal. Pop. Pop. Pop. We were stunned and dismayed. We put the jars in the fridge, planning to re-can them, but it didn’t happen because when we opened the lids and took a sniff, we realized the peaches were already rotting. We dumped them down the garbage disposal, instead—glub, glub, glub—about 40 quarts of peaches slithering down the drain.

Talk about depressing.

(The reason for the unsealing was that the heavy-duty cookstove heated up the canner water extremely quickly, but the jarred peaches didn’t heat up as fast, so the fruit never reached the proper temperature. We still use the cookstove, but we can over medium heat, and then leave the fruit in the canner for a few extra minutes, just to be sure.)

What happened this morning isn’t nearly as bad, but it still made me fume. Last night I washed, peeled, and sliced up a big bowl of beautiful peaches (no bruised knuckles that time) and put the slices on the dehydrator trays. I ran the dehydrator (another gift from my generous mother-in-law) for several hours, but I turned it off before I went to bed because the dehydrator is quite powerful (I think there may be a connection between my mother-in-law and powerful presents) and I didn’t want the peaches to be cornflakes come morning. However, when I came down this morning and turned the dehydrator back on, I got a nauseating wiff of rotten peaches. So the chickens got the peaches, instead. In retrospect, cornflake peaches would’ve been just fine.

I have more peaches to do up, and I plan on buying some more bushels over the next several weeks, so I suppose the good news is that I will have lots of chances to work out the kinks and get really good at preserving peaches sans rotting. I hope I remember everything I learn by next August when it comes time to sink into the sink with the peach pits yet again (that didn’t really make sense, but I like how it sounded).

Life will be peachy… once all the peaches are canned.