5 DINNER GUESTS

It's Day 19 of the WEGO Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge and my task is to tell you about the five people I would have over for dinner. My group may seem ordinary ... but I assure you the circumstances are anything but!

Guest #1: My father. He didn't like to travel, so he never visited me after I moved out of state. He died four years ago — six months before I got married. (My brother walked me down the aisle. Yes, that was emotional.) My mother, still grieving, wasn't well enough to make the cross-country trip, so she did not attend my wedding either. (Yup, that was emotional too.)

Guest #2: My husband's father. He was the only one of our parents to attend our wedding (my future mother-in-law died while my husband and I were still dating). Unfortunately, my father-in-law passed away seven months after we married.

Guest #3: My mother. One year after my father died, my mother decided she was ready for a change. So after visiting my siblings in various parts of the country, she made her way to our place. Her timing was bittersweet and laced with fate, because she never got to meet my father-in-law. Why? He died three weeks before she arrived. (Are you following?) After visiting us for a few weeks, my mom decided to stay — permanently. We toured several apartment complexes, but nothing was a perfect fit. Then we realized we already had the perfect fit — nope, not my house; my late father-in-law's. She now resides in my husband's childhood home. So instead of saying "Let's go visit your father" I say, "Let's go visit my mother." Same house, different parent. Kismet!

Guest #4: My husband. How could I leave him out of this masterful dinner plan after all that?

Guest #5: The Barefoot Contessa. Ina Garten is such a fabulous cook; her recipes are a delicious delight, and her parties look like so much fun. This is a dinner party, after all, and someone has to cook. Why not ask Ina? We'll go to her Hampton's house and eat outdoors with the cool ocean breeze. Sounds downright delightful.

CLOSETS AND HUCKLEBERRY FINN

It's Day 18 of the WEGO Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge and today's prompt tells me to choose a book, open to a random page, point to a phrase — and start writing. I grab the first book I see on the shelf: a 1948 copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I'm not sure I can write a blog post based on whatever I find in here, but I'll try...

(Copyright © 2012 The Big C and Me)

Page 100: "By and by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all sorts of things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three boxes of seegars."

I haven't stolen any trucks with my gang lately, but I did clean out my closet this morning — and found some boots and clothes, along with the following:

• a burgundy tablecloth from Christmas
• a map to a beach town I recently visited (I picked up the map when I was there last summer, so it's obviously been on the floor of my closet most of the year)
• an old bathrobe (that finally found its way to the rag pile)
• a small rattan picnic basket (holds one bottle of wine, two wine glasses, two cloth napkins and a corkscrew, and has never left the house)
• A pink bed pillow (I used it while recovering from my bilateral mastectomy last year)
• A Jersey Boys playbill
• A coupon to California Pizza Kitchen that expired July 3rd — of last year (I'm seeing a pattern here...)
• A black and white photo of Husband and I on our wedding day (I swear, I'm not that old; I had a print enlarged and made black and white, but then promptly forgot to frame it. Maybe for our anniversary?)
• Slippers from the Four Seasons (the hotel, not the Frankie Valli variety)
• My gym bag (which reminds me: I need to join a gym)
• Several cloth grocery bags (why they insist on hanging out in my closet and not in my back seat, I'll never know)
• A few of my late father's shirts (just because)
• A metal thingy that has six hooks on which I will hang belts (once Husband attaches it to the wall)

I didn't find any blankets, or books, or spyglasses. (And definitely no seegars.) But I have to admit: It was an adventure!