Can you say "fish fork" three times fast?

Well, I'm back from my fiftieth high school reunion, and I will have to say that all in all, it was a good experience. When yours rolls around, you should go.

For one thing, you will feel grateful to still be alive, if you have a bulletin board posted with all of your deceased classmates.

I was in a big class, and I have to admit I recognized precious few of the attendees, especially the men.  We wore name tags bearing our senior photo and name, and the photos alone would not have given adequate clues, in most cases. If I had known that my senior photo would have followed me for the remainder of my days, I would have tried a lot harder, let me tell you. I was thin then, true, but I wouldn't go back to my 1963 look even now, so I guess you could say that's a good thing.

But, it was a good looking class then and now, and it was fun. And my home town, fifty years later, was, well, a little alarming. My home is gone, replaced by condos, and many more random commercial strips have sprouted, but some things I was sure would have been paved over are still there. Like the Sheridan Road Nursery where we bought plants.  Close to a shopping center, but not consumed, at least not yet, and still surrounded by pretty little houses. And the unkillable Lariat Club, not a club but a burger and steakhouse,  once log cabin-ish, now slicked up , but, I was assured, as greasy as ever.

And I saw Jack, the old friend I wrote about some time ago who had become unreachable after the death of his wife. I'm going to tell you about that, but in another blog. It's happy and sad and complicated, as those things usually are, and I can't put my mind there right now.

Two non-reunion things of which I am proud today: I've hammered off a little more weight and have moved the scale down to the next decade lower, so progress is happening, although slowly; and I put away my Christmas china.

Please don't visualize my plates sitting on the table these last ten months, flecked with bits of Christmas ham and plum pudding. I'm a casual house keeper, but not that casual. These were shelved months ago, but not properly housed in their little quilted bags, separated by foam pads, zipped up cozily in their litle round houses, as they are now.

No, these were lovely creamy porcelain, bordered in dark green and edged in gold given to me by my mother-in-law many years ago. In fact, I used them for the first time only a couple of years ago, being under the impression that the set, housed in our storage room, consisted of desert plates and cups and saucers.

Not so. Bowls for soup?  What kind of soup? Cream?Clear? Feel like a fish course? How about shell fish?  Need little bowls of ice under your shrimp cocktail? No problem. How could I have missed this? I should have known, because this is how my mother-in-law operates.

A number of years ago, when our daughter was attending  a small North Eastern college, she occupied an apartment in an old house.  The whole top floor.  This made her perfectly suited to provide er, shall we say," housing" for a rock band visiting the campus for a performance.  One of these purported rockers was the brother of my daughter's closest friend, which is how she came by the opportunity of supplying room and board, more of less, for the weekend.

My husband I thought this was hilariously funny and reported this event to her grandmother, my mother-in-law-of-the-china. She said, "Heavens!" shocked by the ad hoc nature of the arrangements. "Did she have enough place settings?"

And not long after, an enormous Neiman Marcus box arrived, containing a silver chest, with enough silver (thank God it was stainless, not sterling ) to entertain the Red Army Chorus, should they be on tour and pass her way. Fish forks, condiment and appetizer forks, luncheon sized and dinner sized forks and every other piece of silverware you have ever heard of, or haven't heard of.

Bring on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!