My husband Brian has been known to spend four hours setting a table, so we don’t often invite people over for dinner.
We’ve got the turquoise Fiestaware for everyday, and the Pottery Barn reindeer plates for Christmas dinners (on those few Christmases that we are not having a meltdown and actually sit down to dinner).
Then there’s the good china, Virtue by Noritake, which we never use along with Damask Rose, the good silver, which we also never use.
We have Currier and Ives plates, in blue and pink. When Nana, Brian’s mother was still alive, she drove from one garage sale to another, getting Brian the blue set, and Tim (our old roommate) the pink. When Tim died of AIDS, he left us his dinnerware so that we would always have more dishes than we could ever hope to smash. But somehow in the Blue Bungalow with super-loud boy energy, my sons have only ever managed to break one plate.
When we decided to have the Sasbs, Uncle Jon and the Ottavianos over, Brian wanted lilacs for the centerpiece so it would be just like a spring dinner back where he grew up in Maine. French lilacs, the plump purple ones with the intense scent. If there is one thing that the East Coast does better than the West, it’s lilacs. I’ve been told that you need a hard freeze to stress the syringa vulgaris so they will bloom extravagantly. There’s a metaphor there somewhere.
The regular reader might guess I’d use the florist on nearby Mission Street, but this florist used to sit right next to a funeral home, so they put lilies in everything. My mother, Nurse Vivian, said, “I hate lilies. Reminds me of death. And did you know cats are allergic to lilies?” She stuck this last fact in like it was crucial, but in her 82 years on the planet, she never once lived with a cat.
Since I’m allergic to cats, you would think I would like lilies, but it doesn’t work that way. The allergy of my allergy is not my friend.
The place makes me nostalgic. The last time I went in, I ordered white roses for my husband (his favorite flower until his current fascination with lilacs). As the guy cut thorns off the stems, he opined, “You know, whenever Liberace played the Cow Palace, I made all the flower arrangements. He loved yellow roses.”
Let’s unpack this. Did he say that to all his customers, or just the ones who ordered roses? Did I look like a pianist, perhaps? Certainly, there was nothing else I had in common with Liberace, other than Catholicism.
Wladziu Valentino Liberace was the first musical performer to play the Cow Palace, way back in 1955 — before Elvis, the Beatles or the Grateful Dead played there.
He was not the queen of the Cow Palace, however. Dianne Feinstein was named Queen of the Junior Grand National at the Cow Palace in 1950.
But none of those celebrities — not Liberace, The King, The Queen, Ringo, Jerry — ever had lilacs in their dressing rooms, because such flora are not to be found in the Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior.
I called around the city before I stumbled upon a place in the Castro that promised lilacs in abundance. But on the day of the dinner, an arrangement of lilies and carnations arrived, with one anemic lilac tucked in: no fragrance, droopy petals. Brian put the vase on the porch and that was the last we saw of it. He did not say that I had failed the marriage, and I did not say that our relationship was a lot easier when he liked white roses.
Sasb showed up with red roses. Jill and Sara brought an orchid. Between the glazed ham, vegan spanakopita, carrot soufflé, asparagus risotto, homemade bread and three-berry salad, there wasn’t room on the table for a centerpiece anyway.
The moral of this story? To quote Dorothy Gale, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.”
As we ate, Queenie sat at my feet, patiently waiting for me to drop the ham. At one point she put her paw on my ankle, which meant she wanted me to carry her out to the lawn, so I excused myself. There, in our tiny little garden, tucked away in a far corner of the city, spring had sprung: brilliant white Calla lilies, trumpet daffodils, a few crocuses and, yes, lilacs. California lilacs. Not as lavish nor as fragrant as their East Coast relatives, but much more determined.
In our home in the shadow of the Cow Palace, we might not have French lilacs on the table, but we were surrounded by both friends and beauty. And that was more than enough.
Kevin Fisher-Paulson’s column appears Wednesdays in Datebook. Email: datebook@sfchronicle.com
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