Dinner, with conversation

Written last night:

Just came home from a lovely dinner with Keith and Maria. We ate outside under the flowers and vines at the Tower Restaurant. It’s Maria’s favorite, and fast becoming mine. Delicious food, perfect service, and they let us stay and talk and talk and talk. Most restaurants I know would kind of hover and wonder if you were going to ever leave. We were tossing ideas and memories and hopes back and forth and probably could have stayed longer … Thanks, Keith and Maria, for a lively evening!

Chris and Sandy -- educators -- you must be here soon! We were talking about kids’ obsession with technology and how we who are older just can’t understand it and how teachers  are under-appreciated and often talked-down to. Keith says you, Chris, engage teachers in give and take and of course respect their ideas and hands-on experience. I wonder what it all means, if indeed what we are saying today will matter a bit tomorrow. 

We also talked about moving and changing and paring back our possessions. Maria is tackling much the same as I’ve been doing recently, in her own way. 

It was a fun end to a tense, business-oriented day for me. I had been putting off a couple of daunting chores. For some things, I expect the worst, even when it is really unlikely. Every time I call a bank (today Capital City Bank in Tallahassee) or deal with car stuff (getting a smog test for Rosa — a requirement for California license plates), or work with the printer on something new (today it was scanning — I used to be able to do that, but aren’t things different in California?) my heart goes bumpy and I feel like a loser. The bank will laugh at my question; Rosa will fail the test (No, not Rosa!); the printer will go offline and never come back … I’m not easy with cars or banks or technology. Today I tried to put a new face on. Yay! I thought, I will of course pass the Smog test (Rosa did indeed pass); Yay! I get to talk to the bank. They love me because I am a peer — I know what I am talking about; and Yay! I get to make the printer do what it’s supposed to do: scan the documents as I command. 

And indeed these things happened today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Love,
k

On a food note: For lunch today I tested the chili I made yesterday. My eating habits are changing, of course. For the past three months I barely knew what was on the plate. And now I'm eating more simply -- it's not the same when you don't have someone to share your meals. So I have this faint notion of frozen chili packets and red beans that I cooked separately, to eat with the chili or some other way. I used this great recipe my friend Teresa gave me ages back. I never follow it exactly, but it is always delicious.
Teresa's chili recipe