The mood swings may be gone, but I'm still an emotional gal and I don't really keep a steady course. Luckily, something always comes along to jolt me out of the doldrums and back into being very well pleased with my life. On Tuesday, it was dinner with Denise Rehse.
Denise, you will recall, is my best friend. We squeal a lot when we're together which is a bit embarrassing but neither of us can help being excited to see one another. We laugh loudly a lot, too. Basically, neither of our husbands wants to be around when we're together. It's too girly by half. We were both miserable about living so far apart when I left San Francisco in 1989. It was tough being without a best friend for eight years, let me tell you. We'd meet up once every second year or so but it wasn't nearly enough. And we'd have to plan it all out in advance, which takes some of the pleasure out of hanging out with your pal; you know you only have x number of hours or days before you go back to being isolated and friendless (I told you I was emotional). Anyway, moving back to the Bay has meant not having to plan; we just ring each other up and say let's go. Tuesday, we met at my place to exchange gifts and then dashed off to an elegant little ristorante in Palo Alto called Caffe Riace.
There's something perpetually charming about discovering small restaurants that treat you like family (if your family happened to be astoundingly good cooks from Sicily). Riace was a marvel, tiny and exquisitely decorated, the cooks bustling about and exlaiming in Italian while Giovanni made fresh gelato and Mario arrived late for work looking moody and volcanically handsome. There was a lot of affectionate hugging and kissing as various people turned up for dinner. We chose our food but Giovanni decided what we would have for appetizers and dessert, bringing cappuccinos without asking after we sat back in our chairs replete from the huge, wonderful meal. For the space of two hours we felt Italian ourselves.
Out in the plaza in front of the restaurant are three huge bronze statues. There are two mighty-thewed warriors, and a woman who looks like a Greek goddess with a washing machine on her head. A coin operated washing machine, in fact, from which water splashes continually into the pool at her feet. It's just perfect, somehow, the two beefy warriors hefting their spears and this woman hefting her machine. She doesn't look like someone you'd want to mess with on a bad laundry day. The whimsy was a nice touch after such a good evening. We made arrangements to meet again over the weekend. Nothing specific, maybe Friday, just sometime. I loved not having to plan it out. I went home, full and sleepy and very, very happy.
Oh, the gifts? She gave me a pair of tiny golden shoe earrings and a bracelet with shoe charms. They are amazingly detailed and perfectly crafted. In fact, a couple of the shoes look just like the shoes I used to have for my Barbie doll in 1963 and I really wish I could find a pair in my size. As for me, I gave her the gift of flight. We're going to Cabo San Lucas sometime soon. I expect there will be a great deal of squealing.
