1998

The Last Supper

The Dinner Menu

Journal Entry
April 27th

I had a good weekend although it was quite busy.  Anne (my daughter) found some fish super store in Lancaster PA. and want me to go with her to see it.  They also had a very large line of outdoor fish pool stuff so I agreed.  I thought it would take about three hours to drive there but it took just over 2 hours.  The place was about the size of a Wall Mart but for fish, cat. dog, reptile supplies.  I bought a 6'x4' pool liner, filter, pump and accessories for a pool out back. It is going to make a really nice pool out back next to the deck.  Sunday we went to yoga in the morning and then spent all afternoon weeding, planting and mulching our plots out front and out back.  We pulled up all the pansies and planted impatiens and petunias.  I also repainted the front door and various other house maintenance items.  We are trying to get the house "fixed up" for a diner party we are having this coming Saturday in which two other couples from my old job are coming over (was three but one couldn't make it).  Julie has planned an all vegetarian meal.  We haven't done anything like this in years so we are quite excited about it.

The dinner event I wrote about was what later I would call the “Last Supper”.  In my time working at Bell Atlantic I made several friends, guys I worked with. It was an interesting assortment of coworkers. There was Dave, a nice mellow older “Bell Head” employee who was only a few years from retirement. There was Jim, a couple of years older than me who was really into white water rafting. And then there was Rick, maybe ten, at least seven or eight years younger than me. We had a good comradery at work, sitting in cubicles next to each other, doing lunch together most every day, even a white-water trip led by Jim.  Julie had met them all at one time or another so we decided to give a formal dinner for them.

Julie planned it all, I was the errand boy and kitchen staff, chopping, dicing, icing, whatever she needed to be done. I did a bit more than that, I made up the formal printed invitations and menus, all in a pretty green and purple spring flower motif. There was matching tablecloth, place mats, napkins and name cards all eloquently set upon the table, silk ivy and purple flowers down the center with a couple of tall white candles, and a center piece of a large glass cylindrical vase half filled with crystal blue marbles with ivy and flowers flowing out of it.

Julie had been increasingly cooking vegetarian the past couple of years, so she planned an all vegetarian menu. Oh, it sounded good, Manhattan Salad, Zucchini stuffed with spinach and artichoke hearts, Chocolate Cream Cake for dessert, and just to finish things off, Strawberries and Crème Fraiche.

A couple of days before Jim let me know he couldn’t make it but Dave and his friend, and Rick and his wife Julie came. Everything went well starting with the opening courses with a white wine then opening a red to go with the Vegetable-Cheese Muska, conversation was good, they were interesting people. We served the desert with a liqueur and the dinner was a success. After dinner we guys talked some about work with concern about what was happening there.

It would be the last dinner with them. It would be the last formal dinner Julie and I would host. It would be my Last Supper.

PEC