Let me entertain you

We have guests coming tomorrow. I am sitting here in my kitchen - dark and warm, with the refrigerator humming and the dog outside running in his sleep - after a dinner shift at work. I've got my elbows on the butcher block, and a legal pad in front of me, and I'm making a grocery list.

I love having guests. I especially love having guests for dinner. I ESPECIALLY especially love cooking dinner for guests in a beautiful rental house with a gourmet kitchen and a pool for the children to frolic in until they are called up onto the big porch for dinner.

And tomorrow, I get to do all of the above. Have guests. Cook for them. In a big fancy kitchen. With a pool just outside perfect for swimming and floating and resting and cooling our heels figuratively and literally.

On Maui, of course. Heavenly.

But first the grocery list. The guests, and the friends of the guests, insisted that this wasn't necessary. But at the risk of making them uncomfortable I am going to do it anyway. Dammit. I am putting my foot down. I mean, can you imagine anything worse then getting off a 6 hour flight and waiting for your luggage with your kids and then going to pick up your rental car and trying to fit all the bags inside, and then driving to a grocery store and trying to buy food and then trying to find the rental house on strange roads and then having to COOK SOMETHING?

A lot of times, I don't know better. But this time, I do.

I know they will arrive sleepy and dehydrated after a long flight. The children will be cranky and hungry and bored and tired of being all cooped up on an airplane. They want to go play in that pool and lie around on the porch and maybe watch a movie or something. And so I am buying groceries and getting things ready and I will be waiting at the airport and it's no trouble at all and I am sure you would do the same. Wouldn't you? Of course. Of course you would.

I am thinking homemade mac and cheese for the kids, and salads with grilled ahi for the grownups. I am making a mango-pineapple salsa for snacking.

Yes. That will be perfect. I hope I don't fuck it up, It would be nice to be right for once.