TWO TABLES, ONE DINNER

image via DG Studios

Two tables are ready. Those are the magic words for a big dinner party.

Unless it’s a big dinner at your house and you want one table instead of two tables.

Then what?

Crowd in. This is no restaurant, this is back deck dinner.

Careful where you sit if you’re wearing white, it might not be as white when you get up.

Are eight people too many? Depends on the eight.

How often does a good idea for dinner turn the other way? Like it’s still a good idea, just not as good as you thought?

If that’s something you worry about when you have people over, they might be the wrong people.

What if it’s not people showing up, but kids and their wives and girlfriends? Those are the right people. You can relax.

If you have metal chairs, throw some pads out. Homemade cushions are the best. Sit on one of those and you know what home is supposed to feel like no matter where you are.

Even if the table is empty, the food plans better not be. Oregon baby boomers have incredible choices in front of them.

Portland baby boomers have the Oregon boomer thing and the Portland choice: go all in with the free roaming organic non-gluten vegan spread, because you can, or wing it with whatever you’ve got.

Married boomers know this: one of you plans better than the other. One of you tunes into the Cooking Channel, one of you cruises the frozen section of Safeway.

An empty table leaves so much to the imagination, but it’s really two tables when dinner starts rolling.

Here come the place mats, the silverware, the drinks. Here come the ladies. Why the ladies first?

Boomers know the ladies’ first rule. We’ve known it awhile.

Dinners together might sound traditional, might sound cheesy. Dinner together might sound even desperate.

Who cares as long as you pull it off.

So round up your peeps and pour a tall one on the deck.

If anyone notices a little grit and grime around the edges of the table and chairs, around the house siding and decking, start talking about the pressure washer you’ve been thinking about.

Then invite everyone back to break in the clean you create.