Liveblogging - part four

[desperance]

Okay. They're due in five minutes. The table and mats have been wiped (I used to be slovenly and not do stuff like that, until a lover told me - tenderly, I thought, but quite firmly - that it was important. I said "Hey, it's only you and me tonight, and you know what I'm like..." "Yes," he said, "and I'm trying to change you." With what results, please note!), a full bottle of wine has been knocked over - no names, no cat-drill - and recovered, at the cost of one sodden chair-seat; guess who's getting a wine-wet bottom tonight...?

There really isn't much more I can do about the food until they're here. I shall continue laying the table. The new rice-bowls and spoons have been washed (necessarily, as the spoons' price-labels were stuck to the bowls, just where people would stick 'em in their mouths; much soaking and scrubbing has occurred, to get the gum off). Chopsticks can be found, but actually I think I'll hold off until people say what they want; I may have some forkers among the guests, and I'd hate to humiliate them into asking for the nasty sticks to be taken away and a nice prongy fork to be brought instead.

I must have forgotten something - besides the mushrooms for the soup, that is - but by definition, I don't know what it is.