Hello dear friends, and welcome to
coffee. I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since our last virtual coffee
together! (I’m refraining from segueing with “where has the time flown” as
we’re not quite eighty yet…) Let’s get our favorite topic, the weather, out of
the way first, shall we? Our crazy climatic conditions continue (oh, how I love
alliterations!), you may remember we had a pretty cool and dreary summer, an
inexplicably hot September and about 5 minutes of autumn. Today it has started
snowing. Yes, snowing.
Of course it’s not snow snow yet it’s still that gross, slushy, wet thing that looks
like snow coming down, splatters on your windshield but then turns to water as
soon as it hits the ground. Up where the husband works (which is also where I
go and pretend to work a couple days a week), it’s actually snowing, real snow.
Which is fantastic because since the leaves haven’t finished falling off the
trees yet the tree branches get really heavy with snow and break off. This is so
great on so many levels! Let’s see, well first you have to watch where you park
because those lovely falling branches tend to land on parked cars, and there’s
no point trying to park away from the trees as we work on a mountain covered in
pine and chestnut trees. Also, the branches like to fall on telephone lines,
which is so exciting cause then we get to work with no phones for months and
months because we live in a beautiful albeit completely inefficient country
(see how I switched those around?) where it takes the phone company three
months to come repair our phone lines. (Three months is not an estimate or an
ironic exaggeration of reality, it actually happened just like this two years
ago when it also started snowing way ahead of time). Unfortunately, I won’t be
able to go visit this winter wonderland we call our workplace because I haven’t
finished fishing out all our winter stuff from storage, and the husband can’t
seriously expect me to go work and risk catching a cold cause am inappropriately
dressed now can he!
Setting sarcasm aside, the past few
weeks have been both crappy and great, since I’ve posted on the crappy enough
this week let’s talk about the great. The husband and I went off on a wonderful
weekend getaway to Milan two weekends ago. A weekend in a nice hotel was my
birthday present, and since we had a really good friend’s fortieth birthday to
celebrate we decided to treat ourselves to some child-free time. It was
wonderful, and very, very strange. We simply aren’t used to being without two
very short, needy, hilarious and cuddly people all the time, so we kept looking
around for them all weekend. It was fun spending time alone in a city we loved
and lived in for many years. It brought us back to the early years of our
marriage and to another life of dinners in nice restaurants, aperitifs in chic
bars, of buzzing in and out of beautiful shops with nary a care in the world.
It was also nice being pampered in a lovely hotel, of course we had forgotten
how snooty people in the service industry were in Milan, but all in all we had
a great time. Oh, and did I mention I did some shopping? Ahem, let’s leave it
at that.
I’m still waiting on my other birthday
present, which was supposed to be a KitchenAid all-purpose mixer/blender
thingy, but isn’t cause I already have one (that’s another, less design-y
brand) that works fine and has all the attachment pieces already, and so was
swapped with a Le Creuset pot. I’ve been coveting one of these for years, and
am very excited to try all the wonderful roasts and stews in it. If only my
husband would get his act together and
take me to buy it (hint, hint, wink, cough).
Ok, my coffee’s gotten cold and all the
dreary wet snow outside is making me sleepy so I’m done rambling on today. How’s
about you? What have you been up to? Do you own a le creuset or a kitchen aid,
would you recommend them to your friends?
Now go visit our hostess Amy!
