Setting an endless table
Tonight, I’m taking a break from the dumpster. They’ll all be there tomorrow, full of all kinds of delights, they can wait. Tonight, I want to prove that there’s more to my life than talking trash and looking at or talking about what idiots do. Tonight, I want to participate in something that many of my family members and my friends do in November. They all do posts about what they are grateful for, and most of them are telling the truth. This year, Thanksgiving comes late in the month so that gives extra days for gratitude to be expressed before we switch to the celebration of gluttony.
Like everything else that I write about, I only write about things as they occur or as I’m inspired, usually towards the end of the day, while I’m fixing dinner. I prefer the end of the day when I can recap all of the things that I’ve seen or heard and select something from the menu. Sometimes it’s like ordering food at the China Palace, “I’ll take a #17 with a side of stupidity, but I really have to have a full size order of fried stupidity, don’t forget the fortune cookies, I have to do this again tomorrow”
Now I want you to rest easy with the fact that I’m not going to do this every day. I’ll do it on occasion as I find the inspiration, if you want constant preaching, go to church. As I mentioned, I’m fixing dinner, and dinner at my house is always an adventure. It’s a cross between “Chopped” and “Mythbusters” with Bobby Flay’s attitude setting the theme. The Dinner menu is determined by what I glean and what’s on sale accompanied by the same criteria in vegetative matter. While I’m usually proud of my accomplishments, my children and grandchildren use other adjectives like “scary” or “WTF” and in the background I hear discussions about placing the old bastard in a home. Be that as it may, I’m on budget, it’s healthy and there are starving children in Africa.
If you come to my house for dinner, it will be an adventure. No reservations are required and you’re guaranteed not to go hungry, you may not know what to call what you ate, but you won’t be hungry. But let me tell you also, the plates aren’t going to match. I’ve stopped buying dish sets, some are leftover from when I did, some are from sets that I’ve “found”, and currently we’re featuring an IKEA white plate with an occasional Pfaltzgraff thrown in. The cutlery will be a variety of stainless steel or silver, nice heavy duty stuff but don’t bother to look for a match. Most of the chairs around the table match, but that table, that table is incredible. It stretches, as the need increases so does the table.
The table has friends; others can be added to make it longer. The idea of building longer tables instead of fences is great, lay those fences down on some blocks and you have more tables. Use a blanket and you have a picnic, food service by a car hop used to be popular and there’s no reason we can’t do it again for those who are forced to live in “motor homes”. Food wherever it is served, on whatever it is served, on anything that is a table is a welcome gift; it’s a sharing of a bounty that we are all grateful for. Don’t let your little table stop you, don’t let your strange creations stop you, don’t let your concept of propriety be an impedance to your generosity.
Let us all be thankful for what we have, thankful for the bounty that we can share, thankful for the opportunity to benefit others, thankful for the opportunity to answer the dinner bell with an abundance and an enthusiasm that allows all that are hungry to be fed regardless of the settings and the trappings but simply because our table knows no bounds and will stretch and grow to meet the needs of all that are hungry in our community.