As I was pulling out of the rental car lot at 12:30 am in the torrential downpour, my mom called.  “Hey, where are you?”  “Flight canceled, had to rent a car, driving to Charleston.”  “By yourself?!”   Pause.  “No. With Friends!”  Pause.  “Friends.  Like friends you just met at the airport, or friends you’ve known for a long time.”  Seriously, why would she assume I’d just met them, even if I did?  “Friends I just met but we know all the same people and I checked them out and I’m going to be okay let me call you later!”  Eventually I gave her their names and our connections and it was fine.  In the end, we split the $200 cost of the rental car four ways, and made it to Charleston around 3 am.  One of my new friends did not have a checkbook or cash, and he promised to mail me a check as soon as he got back to New York.  He worked in publishing, and also promised to send me books.  The promise of books alone was extremely exciting, and he was nice enough to ask me all about what sort of books I enjoyed and who my favorite authors were. 

As Monday was a holiday, the first business day after our Friday night trek was the following Tuesday.  On Wednesday afternoon, I returned home from work to find a large box on my doorstep.  True to his word, my New York friend had overnighted me a check for $50, and an impressive array of books.  Y’all, seriously, this was probably one of the most exciting presents I have received in recent memory.  I ripped into the box, and spent a long time sorting through my newly acquired treasures, which included coffee table books, cook books, hardback short stories, paper backs, including books that were already in print and not yet published.  I was struck by the obvious thoughtfulness that went into the book selection.  I told him I enjoyed classics, loved Fitzgerald, and above all, enjoyed a good story, specifically novels and short stories.  I’ve been meaning to tell you all about the books he sent me, and which ones I would recommend, but it has taken me months to read them all.  I have included the covers that I found particularly engaging, but you can’t always judge a book by its cover, I just didn’t want y’all to miss the pretty cover artwork.   

My favorite of all the covers and the books in general was the short story collection – Stories.  This collection was put together by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantoni, and includes stories by all sorts of amazing writers, some you will recognize, some you might not.  In the introduction, Neil relates a discussion concerning short story anthologies in which he and Al came to the conclusion that the only thing they really cared about, when it came down to it, were the stories.  That good writing was important, but the stories were where the real magic happened.  The reason he reads comes down to four words.  “…and then what happened?”  This entire short story collection was built on those four words.  The dedication says it all – For all the storytellers and tale spinners who entertained the public and kept themselves alive, for Alexandre Dumas and Charles Dickens, for Mark Twain and Baroness Orczy and the rest, and most of all, for Scheherazade, who was the storyteller and the story told.  I could talk about this book forever, and I was going to tell you which stories were my favorites, but I realized I’d basically need to copy the table of contents for that to happen. 

I’m realizing it could take me days to get through all my thoughts about these books, so I’m going to have to come back to this discussion.  In other news, it has been raining pretty consistently for about the past week, I’m still eating lots of oysters, Briscoe looks like a muppet dog because she hasn’t had a hair cut in so long (someone called her Benji the other day), and we had a fire drill at work this morning.

I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone, so many special friends from the law school years, and I’m so excited for Betsy and Andrew.  I tell Betsy all the time that I want to be just like her when I grow up.  She’s such an amazing friend and I’m always impressed with how she and Andrew are able to have common goals and dreams and actively pursues these goals and dreams together in a successful and exciting way.  I love them.  And I love Kaya too. 

Pray that it doesn’t rain, and I hope that your Friday the 13th is as fun as mine promises to be!

Kisses!

Boarding soon – see you soon!

This was actually on Saturday night at the House of Blues where we about got kicked for being cute and young and fun.  Hey, it happens. 

Now let’s talk about two way stops, where there is a busy road, and you are on a smaller road, either trying to cross the busy road or turn onto the busy road from the smaller road.  The rules are basically the same, but sort of different because you are trying to not get killed by oncoming traffic on busy road.  What makes sense to me, and what seems the most safe in my experience, is that  if you are sitting at the stop sign, and there is another car sitting at the stop sign on the other side of the busy street, REGARDLESS of who got there first – the person turning right is probably going to go when ever it wants – and not worry too much about the other car, because they only need one lane to be clear to turn.  But if one car is going straight across busy road, and one car is turning left onto busy road, the car going straight should go first.  Then the car going left can turn. 

Obviously, if there are lots of cars in line, and all the cars on one side are going straight and all the cars on the other are turning left, they should take turns, straight, left, straight, left, etc.

But lately I’ve been thinking that maybe I have this theory wrong.  Because every time I try to give the person going straight the right of way, they sit there like I’m stupid and wave to me to go ahead and go, which seems dangerous because sometimes I react to their waving by assuming the coast is clear, when really it isn’t.

Was I taught wrong?  Or is the world just full of terrible drivers? 

Yesterday was Jennifer’s birthday, so we are going to some awesome restaurant tonight.  But for breakfast this morning – I think we are going to go find a yummy bagel.

I’m really excited about this week and this weekend, and I will be in touch about our adventures. 

Kisses. 

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But then this morning I started looking at a large map of Rome that my dad blew up. And I turned on the television and began watching My House in Umbria – the Maggie Smith movie. I have seen it before, so I didn’t mind that I only caught the last part of it. Although it is a rather upsetting movie, I adore the depiction of life in the Italian countryside.

When I was looking at the map, a flood of memories rushed back to me. The streets all means something different, I have a distinct mental picture for each. The fountains on the corner, the orange buses, the enormous ads on the buildings, the ruins that seem to grow in ever crack and cranny of the modern city, the vespas flying by carrying well dressed Italians to their high profile jobs, the hills, the gardens, the stores, the stores, the stores! Not to mention the food.

While watching the movie I flashback to a weekend trip that Catherine Anne, Suz, Beth and I took to Assis. The mid-June heat of Rome was becoming oppressive, and we had been in the city long enough to miss the county. As we emerged onto the platform at the foot of the hill the refreshing breath of summer overpowered the exhaust of the train moving on to the next town. Our lodging were situated directly below the town on the winding path that cut up the hillside and consisted of a rambling country house of terraces and shuttered windows amid flowers, cats, and dogs.

Initially disappointed with the inn’s distance from the town and the realization that walking would be our only option for travel, it wasn’t long before we came to the conclusion that nowhere in the town could have been as pleasant. Saturday afternoon we sat in the windows of our room and looked out onto the valley as the most tremendous summer thunderstorm rolled in and frightened and delighted us as it lit up the sky and tore into the sunbaked ground as we told secrets and stories.

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