Come in!
Well, well, well. Look who’s here.
I haven’t seen you in many
A year.
If I knew you were comin’ I’d’ve baked a cake, baked a cake, baked a cake
If I knew you were comin’ I’d’ve baked a cake
Howdya do, howdya do, howdya do?
1950 Song Lyrics

Two years ago, during the Halcyon days of cozy non-masked gatherings, I hosted my book club made up of young professional woman and old retired me.

The book was Next Year in Havana, which takes place in Cuba.  Weeks before the meeting, I researched Cuban food.   The day of the meeting, I prepared Ropa Vieja, Arroz con Pollo, a two-foot Cuban sandwich, fried plantains, and a couple pitchers of Mojitos.  I asked Alexa to play some Cuban ballads.  I created a slide show of photos I took on my 10-day trip to Cuba. I practiced my 10-word Spanish vocabulary, tried to patch together some greetings.

I know we talked about the book, but I can’t remember if people liked it. I can’t remember which of our members attended.    I remember mostly freshening drinks, adjusting the temperature on the warming tray, telling Alexa to raise the volume, fooling with the HDMI cable, packing up leftovers, washing dishes, mopping the floor.  I remember the next day that my body hurt everywhere.

During this year of the plague, that book club has operated completely on Zoom. Last night, when it would have been my turn to host, we sipped our own wine and dirtied our own dishes.  I didn’t wear makeup or, to be honest, a bra. I was not stressed before the meeting,  and was not exhausted after.  I was just filled up with good conversation.

So why in the world did I entertain so large?   Did I love it, or did I do all that simply because I could?  Or should?

Or is it because over-the-top entertaining is what has become expected of me, what defines me?  And whose “top” am I trying top?

I ask myself these questions as I consider the evolution of my other book club, one comprised of former teacher colleagues, ancients like me.  We have been together for 21 years, and the hosting in our homes has become increasingly elaborate, often involving good china and table linens, oven cleaning and floor scrubbing.

During the pandemic, we continued to meet monthly, but in Price Hill’s Mt. Echo Park overlooking the city. We brought our own lawn chairs and sack lunches and sat socially distanced in a circle in the Pavilion.  The horticulturalist kept the flowers blooming and the bathrooms sparking clean.  Sometimes someone brought a tub of baked cookies (I still remember Nancy’s gingersnaps) portioned out by her rubber-gloved hands into baggies, She put the container in the middle of the circle for us to take as we wished. Oh, we wished, alright.

We talked about the books and our families and the damn virus.  Oh, and the gingersnaps.

After a few hours, we all drove home in our own cars.  Everyone enjoyed it, and there were no dishes or sticky floors or achy joints afterwards.

Rick and I had been fully vaccinated for a couple months when Dr. Fauci, the most cautious of our epidemiologists (not sure I even knew that word a year ago) said it was okay for vaccinated folks to gather inside. We hadn’t entertained friends in our home for thirteen months.

Saturday afternoon before our daily nap,  I said to Rick, “Why don’t we invite our old neighbors over tomorrow morning?“

There was that little pause holding all of his dread before he answered, “We could.”

I knew what he was thinking:  This would require a hasty trip to the grocery (and a second for what I forgot), firing up the stove, oven, microwave, crockpot, warming tray, toaster.  Ironing a tablecloth and washing crystal that had been collecting dust for over a year.   Cleaning the baseboards and scrubbing the kitchen grout with a toothbrush.  Pants that had to be buttoned and zipped.

And he was thinking how bitchy I get when I try to get things just right.

“I’ll keep it simple,” I promised.  He gave me that look.

I invited our friends via text, specifying that I would be serving cake and coffee.

Two of the three couples could make it on this short notice.  Both women offered to bring something to add to the table.  “No, thanks, “ I said.  “There will be cake, a pot of coffee, some fruit I already have.  Period.  And there will be us, together.”

I talked myself out of dusting the bookcase, which is backbreaking work because of the weight of books and the weight of the dust.  I talked myself out of scrubbing the kitchen floor, dingy grout be damned.  I talked myself out of baking something requiring yeast.  I talked myself out of a tablecloth that had to be ironed.

I lit candles.  I told Alexa to play piano music.  I said, three times, “Alexa, turn down the volume,” because she doesn’t know background noise drives people of “a certain age” crazy.

And then they arrived.  With great flourish, we all stripped off our masks. We hugged.  Oh, how we hugged. We ate coffee cake and drank coffee.

The three couples sat together until the conversation devolved into opinions about the U.C. basketball coach.

Then the three women scooted over to the living room, leaving the guys at the table to rave about their grandchildren, fret over the stock market, and debate the relative merits of different golf clubs.  And colonoscopies.

The ladies, raved about their grandchildren, shared book recommendations, and debated the relative merits of different furniture stores.  And hysterectomies.

Three and a half hours later, my company left.  (They were probably hungry for their next meal.)  We vowed to get together again soon.  One friend commented that this reminded her of when we were young and house poor and had cake in each other’s homes while the kids wrecked the family room.

I admit I had forgotten that.  Yes, good times.

Rick put all the dishes in the dishwasher.  I brushed the crumbs off the vinyl placemats.  That night, I took my usual dose of Advil, not anticipating more than usual morning achiness.  I had time and energy to floss.  And pray.

I will not entertain any talk of “silver linings” of this horrible year, a year redolent of loss and grief; isolation and too-much-marriage; economic hardship; uncertainty and fear.  But wouldn’t it be a shame if we went through such a cataclysmic time without learning something?

Has the pandemic changed us, or like Michelangelo, just chipped away the excess to reveal our elemental selves?  What we missed lo these many months was not what was on the table, but who was sitting around it.

Book Club: Coming out of the pandemic, we are coming to our senses–LaRosa’s

Maybe all we ever really needed was a cake and a pot of coffee and a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Here are some related posts you might enjoy.

Ladies Who Would Like to Lunch
School’s Out Forever:  Reflections of a Retired Teacher
When Dinner is Performance Art . . . and Requires a Hat
I Ran Away From Home During the Pandemic
Why I Dyed My Hair During the Pandemic
Americans Puttin’ On the Blitz
June Cleaver Has Left the House
Love in the Time of Covid
The Corona Virus Chased Us Out of Norway
Social Distancing Just Doesn’t Cut It