tabling the issue

Today I discovered Oneida.com. OoooOOOooo.

I've always liked setting a nice table - my favorite table ever was Bon's bridal shower table(s) at L'Uraku. Motif: polychrome paradise (I miss those umbrellas.) Each guest had a different colored napkin, and either a blue or green gift bag by her plate. I arranged red, yellow and pink rose petals down the center of the table. It sounds like a big color-mess but in the mid-morning light, and with L'Uraku's decor, it looked very pretty.

I've long been a fan of Pier 1 and have purchased many an odd piece of dinnerware from the Ward location - a rectangular orange and red dish with an elephant on it, cereal bowls, a pair of sterile white plates big enough to tap dance on, a really big mug. I bought my first placemats and cloth napkins (orange with embroidered dragonflies) from Pier 1.

My second favorite table made use of those placemats and napkins - had some friends over and cooked up an outdoor dinner for four. White plates, orange mats and napkins, a few fat candles. Such ceremony. When was the last time I had those friends over? Um, had 'em over the new place for a Passion Party, and the majority of people had to sit on the floor. I think I served frozen lasagna on paper plates.

I no longer have a dining table. I have a table that used to be used for mealtimes and now holds more crap than you can shake a stick at. It's been converted to the "computer table." We eat on the couch in front of the TV. I have a wrought iron-looking thing that I bought on a whim from Ross because I thought it would look so awesome on my lanai. We used to eat outside at this table. Even though it had an inconvenient design (spaces big enough for your fork to fall through, for instance) at least it was a table to eat at.

Anyway this was supposed to be about dinnerware. Oneida.com - hm, maybe we should register for china. It's not china in the stuffy, Waterford sense, but modern, colorful stoneware that can be mixed and matched. True to my wacky form, though, what first caught my eye was a set of handpainted Farmhouse Rooster ware. What's not to love about a barnyard motif? Come 'n' get it.