swiss coffee & truffles

-
Things can really surprise you. You can be floating along on your little stream of life and then boom! I'm pretty happy with my insular life. We don't have a ton of friends that we have over all the time....and I've always been ok with that. I'm not the type that hangs on the phone and feels like I have to call someone incessantly with the latest news. George and I like to hang out and watch movies together or if I'm alone during the day after all my work is done I like to have a cup of coffee and read a book. Overall I like being alone---I'm very independent. That's why yesterday was so pleasant. I went along with George to do an estimate for our friends Pius and Manuela Felder. Their daughter Delia is in Belle's class. We've always been friendly with them and talk at soccer games. Well we went over there and ended up staying for three hours and fifteen minutes! We looked over what she wanted painted and stuccoed but then we sat down for coffee (swiss coffee....they are from Switzerland) and the time just flew! We talked of hospitality in different countries...how we're just too busy here in the U.S. ..... how people never just pop in for a visit. She was so glad we took the time to have coffee! Then her husband Pius came home and not long after we had a shot of Grappa...that's one for you to look up. It was strong and sweet and so interesting. I had read about it in a book about a man and his wife who took a year and lived in France. It was definitely dark and mysterious. Talk turned to cooking and all of their beautiful fresh veggies. She could be a gourmet cook.....and talked of truffles (the super expensive kind...like a mushroom) home-made pasta and all the heavy sauces we drown our pasta in. I was so fascinated. And we laughed and laughed and it felt so good. When we left we felt like we had made some really good friends. We left with the promise of cooking for each other at a sit down dinner. Maybe we haven't made good friends here because when you come from another country...it all seems different. People want to make you think that it's so much better here----we are only kidding ourselves. We're a very insular community and think about ourselves too much. There are people here that we could learn so much from if we decided to look. When I met George I definitely looked around and saw what was wrong.....and it made me sad. I want to change that. I'm so glad I took time out of my day to visit with someone else---I may have made good friend because of it.

Comments

Tina said…
That sounds like a nice visit and the perspective is so good that came from it.
thanks for sharing it.
Hope you are well.
T
August 29, 2008 at 9:51 AM
Tammy Lynn said…
reading your blog often feels like I'm reading my own thoughts! We think alot alike. We must be related or something!
August 29, 2008 at 3:42 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grace in the madness of mothering

-
The Bargain Hunter , where my column appears, is undergoing website changes. For now, my columns will be posted here:  There’s grace somewhere in the octaves between high-pitched and emergency, where I could hear the timbre of my voice and know that I was one step away from madness. This chaos lies in the line of crooked bangs cut with a dull hair scissors, no longer able to brush them away from the brown eyes of a child you love with such fierceness and agony. She would look at me, taunting, hugging me before she ran from me to do the things that would make my throat quiver. She would get up from her bed twenty-nine times in an evening, her Aladdin nightgown swinging as she descended from the stairs, and nothing I did would make her stay. There’s grace allowed somewhere in that madness. I remember rocking my baby in a rocker that several of our family had bought us for our wedding. The curves of it embraced us, and the nursery was warm with forced air from the furnace. I
Read more

We are Ghosts

-
"We are ghosts to you. We don't exist until you want our sympathy or help. You don't think your vote will really count, because you want to see what "happens." It's a vote against us and you don't see that. It's a vote against me. We are ghosts until you want us, but we were never there if you didn't see us until it counted." - quoted by someone I love, 9/24 I am lost.  Awash. Drifting in a sea of distractions. Fraught and edgy. Simple and deep. My thoughts betray me and I cannot sleep. We the people. No longer are we the people we say we are.  We are washed in the blood of Jesus and drowning in our own hypocrisy. We cry out for the blood to flow from the bodies of our brothers and sisters in lands far away - those who cry for our help - as well as turn a blind eye to the ones dying in our streets at alarming levels, shouting, "He should have listened."  We cry "Save the babies!" while we kill those in priso
Read more