What a day!

My day began at 4:48 a.m. Kind of.

My dogs woke me up because they needed to go out. They knew I had to get up early and needed my sleep, but they woke me up anyway.

I tried to go back to sleep and I finally did, but when I awoke, it was 7:45 a.m. and I needed to be at Temple Israel at 8 a.m.

I promised my friend Gail Greenblatt that I would help her make corned beef sandwiches for the annual Deli Day event. I got there about 8:45 a.m. Not too bad.

I washed my hands got into an apron, put on gloves and got to work. How hard could it be?

Take two slices of rye bread and stick a slab of corned beef in between. Then wrap it up. Right?

There's a way to wrap sandwiches that I had no idea of doing. I learned that pretty quickly.

I should have counted the number of sandwiches I made, but I didn't.

Another friend, Meryl Rifkin, caught me up on her life and what her kids are doing. The next thing I knew, they told us to quit making sandwiches because the corned beef ran out. That meant the ladies and I made 2,500 sandwiches. Of course, some people had been there since 6 a.m., so actually, they're the ones who made the bulk of the sandwiches.

The next task I was assigned was wiping the bagged pickles. What?!

Before the volunteers put the whole dill pickles into a plastic snack bag, the pickle is wiped of excess liquid. But if the baggie is not completely closed, then the moisture seeps in the barrel and the outside of the baggie gets wet. Then that means the paper bag that it goes into gets wet. And you'd have giant pickles tearing the bottoms of the paper bags and sandwiches, pickles, coleslaw and the rest falling out.

So we wiped thousands -- OK -- hundreds of baggies and made sure the "zippers" on the baggies were completely closed.

After that, I wandered over to the dessert table to check out what they had this year. I must have gained 10 pounds just looking.

Then I went to help with the iced tea station.

I filled hundreds of Styrofoam cups with ice.

When I looked at the clock, it was 10:50 a.m. and a bunch of people were coming in the door.

Later, one of the volunteers said it was her job to keep the crowd outside because the doors were not supposed to open until 11 a.m.

One woman got mad and said, "Well, at yard sales, they let us in early."

Well, this was no yard sale.

But because the line was getting a little unruly, the doors opened 10 minutes early.

All of the tables inside were filled quickly, and the tables outside were also full. And it wasn't even noon!

About that time, my brother, Fred, and his wife, Cheryl, came in. I gave them their tickets and they went outside to sit on the front lawn of the Temple underneath one of the big oak trees. My sisters, Patty and Nancy, came in a few minutes later.

So I told Gail that my shift was over. Actually, I had taken a break earlier to eat my lunch with the ever-handsome, debonair Clason Kyle. We gossiped and giggled and had a great time.

I bought two desserts and went outside to sit with my family. It was the first time Fred and Cheryl had come to Deli Day and they had a great time. Nancy and Patty are regulars.

Deli Day is one of those quintessential Columbus events where people of all walks of life come to socialize and eat and have some of the best homemade desserts in town.

I have a couple of favorite Deli Day memories.

One is the year that Sandra's Gang went and Tom Ford and Cameron Faucette, as usual, started bickering (like siblings) over dessert. Tom always wants to taste everyone else's and Cameron wasn't having any of his wandering fork bit. We still laugh about that.

And then the year that Mike Haskey was named "Tea Boy." It was awfully hot that year and we were sitting outside. I can't remember how many times we sent Mike in to get refills on our tea. Actually, it was me and Cameron who were sending Mike to fetch us more tea. That's when he was nicknamed Tea Boy.

This year, it was just me and Clason. But it was such a gorgeous day that I can't wait until next year.

Deli Day has been going on for 25 years. I know you have your own favorite Deli Day moment. Please share them with us.

It's going to be a long day. I'm back in the office and after working on next week's To Do, I'm going to see the opera, "Carmen," in the Bill Heard Theatre tonight. I can't wait to see it. And I'll let you know what I thought of it tomorrow.