The past 24 hours had been technological nightmare. At the same time, I participated in two of the most important meetings of my business life.

I left my meeting at the Board of Trade in Chicago feeling pretty good. The cab drive back to the condo was air-conditioned, so I was on a roll. I arrived and needed a pit stop. When I flushed the toilet, it started to growl, lurch and make loud noises. I was freaked. This is new construction! It shouldn't do that! I put my head in the tank to see what was up. At that moment my husband arrived and, when he stuck his head in the bathroom door to see what the noise was, I about jumped out of my skin!

Ten minutes later we had to be ready for a conference call. My husband was in charge of the call but could not find his pass key number, so while I was dialing the plumber and the landlord to fix the toilet, I was also dialing my office and the teleconference company to get their help with the call. (Just imagine the number of phones.)

I no sooner hung up than my husband turned on the water in another bath. Water shot everywhere and hissed like an alley cat. Something was obviously wrong with the water pressure.

Then the Internet connection in the office completely died. Over the phone, my IT guy walked me through the intricacies of hooking up a new router. Still nothing worked.

I felt a headache coming on, so I went to take a pill. Without thinking (you guessed it), I turned on the water in the kitchen. Geyser! I captured some of the flying water and quickly gulped it to help swallow the pill. How dumb was that! The water tasted like carbonated sewer water.

To celebrate the past few hours, we went out for dinner. We had to. We had no water. On the other hand, we did have an Internet coupon for one of my favorite French bistros, so the night was not a complete loss.

Still no water when we got back, although the Chicago Water Department had been working furiously to try to figure out what was wrong.

The next morning I got up at dawn to drive to Madison. No water for a shower. No water to brush my teeth. At 5:45AM I decided to just get in the car (sans make-up) and drive North. Five minutes into the trip, my cell phone died. All those calls I had been planning to make in the car--history.

So that about sums up my challenging 12 hours. I'll spare you the rest of the day. I can just hear you thinking, "Well, I can top that one with . . . " (insert your own story here).

But don't feel sorry for me. Don't even think twice about it. Everything is just peachy.

Speaking of peachy, one of my new Internet "pen pals" sent me a recipe for peach punch. It sounded so good I decided to make it the theme for this column: Peaches. So here's Vicki's punch and a bonus recipe for my newest creation--a peach parfait. You might even make peaches a theme for a party and serve one peachy recipe to start the party and one to finish it up.

When you're making the peach parfait, keep your creativity hat on. You can make the parfait with several combinations of fresh or canned fruit. Use your imagination. Mixed berries are an idea. Banana and strawberry. You can even mix in dessert sauces. Chocolate sauce with the banana and strawberry would be decadent.

The parfait is a serious twist on a Cooking Light recipe I came across, so I need to give them credit but I also wanted you to know it's light and rather healthy.

I used canned peaches because I came up with this idea at the last minute. In regular "Zola fashion," I made it much simpler than the Cooking Light version so you can do this quickly and it looks beautiful.

Use your imagination when you buy the cookies too. You can get plain ginger cookies at the grocery store or you can use flavored ginger cookies from a specialty store like Cost Plus World Market. You can even switch the cookies altogether and insert chocolate wafers or vanilla wafers. Again, you are only limited by your imagination.

If you use fresh peaches, just make sure they are ripe. And I wouldn't even bother to peel them. Pieces of peel are good for you. It's up to you.

Peach Parfait

1/2 cup of light cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup vanilla fat-free yogurt
2 cups of sliced peaches or chunks
1 cup raspberries (clean ones)
1 cup cookie crumbs (Grind in processor or put the cookies in a plastic bag and squash with a rolling pin.)

Whip cream cheese, sugar and vanilla yogurt in a bowl until smooth. Pick out your favorite tall glasses. Clear ones are good because you are going to layer this stuff and it looks pretty if you can see the color changes. You can also use margarita glasses or champagne flutes. Any dish will do in a pinch.

Put in a tablespoon of the cream mixture. Layer on a couple tablespoons of the crumbs. Next put in a layer of fruit. You're going for the layers. Make the layers one-half to one inch each in thickness. If you are using canned peaches, a little of the juice is good. Don't worry about straining them too much, and don't concern yourself if your layers aren't all even. It's part of the fun.

Layer, layer, layer. Top with a dollop of the cream mixture. Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. You can sprinkle on a bit of ground nutmeg to top it off.

When you stick your spoon in, you'll notice the crumbs have sort of turned to caramel (mushy) and they taste divine.

And here's the punch recipe from Vicki Story:

Peach - Champagne Punch

2 cups of peach schnapps
1 bottle of champagne (chilled)
1 2-liter bottle of 7-Up (chilled)
Assorted frozen fruit (strawberries, raspberries, peaches, etc.)

Mix peach schnapps, champagne and 7-Up in a punch bowl and place the frozen fruit to float on top of the punch. Or you could make an ice ring with the fruit and float it.

Vicki wrote, "This wonderful punch really packs a 'punch'!!"

Thanks, Vicki.

Enjoy! Zola