dinner for eight at eight

I am in the land where the Mexican middle class shows its stuff.

Puerto Vallarta is not as deserted as Barra de Navidad.  After all, it is a sizable city.  But the stores at the Liverpool mall have more clerks than customers.  Even the often-mobbed Sirloin Stockade buffet was nearly empty.

Even though my primary mission was to bring friends to the airport, we spent most of the day driving from store to store to audition furniture for my library (or media room) and the upstairs living and dining rooms.  I bought nothing.  But I am starting to develop some ideas.

I thought I had found everything I needed on the Costco Mexico site last month.  While I was in Oregon, my mother, brother, and sister-in-law looked at the pieces online and signed off on my proposal.

That is, until we saw a demonstrator chair of the set at the Bend Costco.  Not only did it look cheap, it was already showing wear simply being on display.

So, I trekked north tabula rasa -- ready to look at all options. 

I may have an answer for the dining room.  That is it at the top of this essay.  We stumbled on it in Liverpool.  I would have rejected it when I had the Costco furniture in mind.  But it meets a lot of the criteria for which I have been looking.

It complements the lines of the house.  Nice flat planes.  Grayish-brown, similar to the house's color scheme.  Its Italianate style and the accompanying leather chairs will fit right in.

The table is for eight -- with a pull-out section for four more settings.  My cooking will have a great stage.

The clerk informed me that Liverpool has a free interior decorator who can assist me with all of my purchases.  "Free" on the condition that I buy the furniture from Liverpool. 

We then visited a series of rattan furniture stores.  The last place was the most forthcoming on my options.  She informed me that I would be wasting my money by buying real rattan for exterior use -- it simply does not hold up in the tropics.

She could afford to tell me that, though, because the PCV rattan is just as expensive as the real stuff.  At least, at her store.  A couch, love seat, and chair would be as expensive as the dining table and 10 chairs at Liverpool.

It appears that I need to start saving more aluminum cans.

But, it could be worse.  The line between classy edginess and questionable taste is a thin one.  I could end up with this in my living room.  It would look as if I had decided to earn income in an ancient way.