Today at Logos

Walt, Jeri, and Alice Nan rolled into town a little before lunchtime yesterday morning.  Jeri had flown into So. California on Sunday, Walt had taken the train down to Santa Barbara on Monday and on Wednesday they drove up to Petaluma to see Uncle Norm and wife Olivia. 

Thursday morning they made their way to Davis, in time for Alice Nan to realize one of her goals:  to finally get to see Logos.  She's heard about it forever, but today she got to actually go there.

She found it smaller than she imagined.  She said the bookcases weren't as tall as she thought and the arrangement of the desk to front door was different than in her imagination, but she really liked the place.  Of course.  Who wouldn't?

She and Jeri were my first customers today.

Jeri bought a copy of "Room" to read on the plane going back to Boston and also a copy of "The Color Purple," since she had never read it.  Alice Nan picked up a copy of Ann Patchett's "Bel Canto."

It was a medium day.  The first part of my shift was very slow, but things picked up considerably around 4.  Susan said we made $279 for the day, which is a decent showing,  Probably because of the lovely weather outside.

My next customer was the train guy who once again stopped in to buy something to read on the train.  He bought a bargain book and, as he left, he said see you next quarter" so I guess he won't be around for awhile.

An older woman bought a book from the Lit section and expressed surprise that James Michener was in Lit and not Contemporary Fiction.

A shy looking Asian young man car

rying a gift-wrapped tube came in.  He looked around forever and finally bought a book by Ogden Nash ("I'm a Stranger Here Myself").  When he paid me, he carefully counted out the coins like I do when using foreign currency.

A bearded bald guy dressed all in black.  He was talking on his cell phone when he entered and waved at me.  He chose a book, paid for it, waved and left again and never got off the phone.

A woman was looking for the book "What is Visible" by Kimberly Elkins, which they were reading in her book club.  She knew nothing about the book and I checked it out on Amazon and found it was about a 19th century woman who lost four of her five senses to Scarlet Fever but by age 20 was considered the 19th century's 2nd most famous woman (the review didn't say who was the first!)

Midway through the afternoon, I noted that there  was not a preponderance of green in the store, which was surprising, given that it was St. Patrick's Day.  In fact, it was not until the last half hour that I started seeing green, both in customers wandering around Logos and in people walking outside (presumably to DeVere's Irish pub around the corner)

I had worn the only green shirt I had, which was my President's Day shirt which has the Gettysburg Address printed in the shape of a picture of Lincoln's head.

Eliza came by and just stood outside the door, facing away from me.  Her thing pastel skirt dragged on the ground and she had a blue blanket over her head  From her body language, I wondered if she was breastfeeding her baby.

The book lady of February 19 (I'm now calling her RosaBooks), who bought $52 worth of books last month, telling me she had NO room for new books, today only bought 5 books, two on non-violence, and two on biodiversity as well as a coffee table book on "Images of Nature," with gorgeous photos of scenes in nature.  We again talked about non-profits, GMOs and her other passions.

A thin guy with a belly that made him look pregnant bought a book on Photography and a contemporary fiction.

The "green people" started coming in, starting with a woman with a bright green bag from "Goats on the Roof Market.  She sat on the floor for a long time looking at the travel books and finally bought 3 books in a series by an Egyptian writer.

A woman in a forest green shirt and aqua green backpack, wearing knee high boots looked through the theater section for awhile and then asked if I had books by Michael Pollen ("He writes about food.")  RosaBooks was still there at the time and showed her were Michael Pollen books were. She knew the store books better than I did.

A large man who looked like he might be uncomfortable in book shops came in with a little girl who wanted to know if we had a book on Ann Frank.  She looked to be about Brianna's age and actually looked a little like Ann Frank. I was sorry we didn't have the book.

Walt, Jeri and Alice Nan showed up, having been at the Irish pub for Irish coffee (the girls) and Guinness (Walt).  We came home briefly and then headed off to Elk Grove to have dinner at Marie's restaurant, Todo un Poco again (I had chile rellenos, those being green, you know!).  Marie was able to spend time with us and we shut the place down and as usual came home laden with food she made for us.  Walt and I just glowed watching Marie, Jeri and Ned together.  They lived together for a year when Marie was going to high school and it was like a family reunion.  Marie and Jeri had not seen each other, they decided, in about 17 years.

Our Other Daughters

We planned to have meals with 2 of our daughters today.

Lunch was with Sonia, our Brasilian daughter.  Sonia was one of the early foreigners we had stay with us, in about 1981.  She did not come through any program but came because a friend of ours who had lived with us for 6 weeks, gave her our phone number in case she needed help while traveling in the United States.  As it happened, she ran out of money in Oakland, and was having problems with her traveling companions, so she called me, in tears, because she had nowhere else to turn.

I brought her to Davis and she moved in with us, then happened to meet Charlie one night at a bar and soon after moved from our house to his. They lived together for several weeks until her return to Brasil. She and Charlie had great plans to remain close, but as time passed, they lost contact with each other. 

Many years later, Sonia contacted me about a trip she was making to the US on business. She hadn’t heard from Charlie in a couple of years, and had no plans to contact him, but wanted to visit us. We were going to be out of town the day she was scheduled to arrive, but I made arrangements for her to get into the house, if she could get herself to Davis. Then, on a whim, I called Charlie and said, “I don’t know if you want to know this, but Sonia is arriving on Saturday and has no way to get to Davis...” 

There was a long silence and then he said “What’s her flight information?” 

When we arrived back home again, there was no indication that Sonia had been there. We didn’t hear from her for a week, and when she called, she had been with Charlie. Six months later, I was the matron of honor at their wedding. And now they have Denise and Daniel both of whom are adults. In 2000 we attended the ceremony where Sonia became a U.S. citizen.

They now live in Napa, where Sonia is an artist and is trying to start a business selling her delicious gluten-free pizzas.  We don't see each other nearly enough, I realized, as we enjoyed getting caught up over sushi.  

Dinner was at the restaurant of our Mexican daughter, Marie.  We went with Ned and Marta to celebrate Marie's birthday, my birthday and Walt's upcoming birthday.

Unfortunately, she and Ned got their dates crossed and we were there on the only day she wasn't going to be there as she was at a wine tasting in San Francisco, but we had a delicious dinner anyway.

The circumstances surrounding Marie's coming to us were pretty weird. Walt and I had gone to a show at a theatre in Davis, and sitting in front of us were some friends who had just returned form Mexico. David is a physician who volunteered time down there each year as part of a program put together by a local minister and his wife.
They talked about how their trip had gone and said that they had met this girl whom the minister and his wife thought had great potential, but she needed to get out of Mexico to be educated. As she had dual citizenship (her father, who had died when she was young, was American), there would be no visa problem, but they needed to find a home for her to live. As they knew I placed foreign students with American families, they asked if I had any suggestions of people they might call to see if they would like to host Marie for a year.
Never one to be able to say no, I immediately said "we'll take her."
Most of our students had been male, which was fine because they could share a bedroom with the four boys. On the rare occasions when we'd had women live with us, they slept in the living room. We'd never had someone live in the living room for a whole year. And I'm sure Marie never dreamed she'd be sleeping on a hide-a-bed for a year.
The short version is that she came and we got along very well. She had some adjustment difficulties but after the first few months, she blossomed. The potential that she displayed in Mexico was very apparent. This was a girl who was intelligent, a hard worker, and she was going to make something of herself. She graduated from Davis High School and worked in a crepe restaurant most of the time she was here.
I can't remember now all the things she did, but she graduated from Sacramento State College with a major in business. She was chosen to go to Peru on a special international business program. She worked for some part of the state government for awhile on some sort of special deal. She wrote a book, I believe. It seemed that everything she touched turned to gold -- and not just out of luck; because she has a good head on her shoulders, knows what she wants, and is willing to work for it.
She married Mannie, a man from India, and shortly after their marriage they opened a restaurant in Elk Grove, south of Sacramento.. It's called Todo un Poco ("all in pieces") and was designed to be a two-part restaurant--one side was the "fine dining" Mexican restaurant and the other side was a more casual pizza parlor. It never quite divided up the way she originally anticipated, but they've had incredible success and it has been named best restaurant in Sacramento by one newspaper, one of the top 10 restaurants in the area by Sacramento Magazine. Marie, was "citizen of the year" in Elk Grove a few years back. She's done a lot of community work especially concerning diversity in the Elk Grove community.

I just love the very unusual paintings by a local artist with whom they became friends which decorate this restaurant.  Many based on a "day of the dead" theme have skeletons somehow resembling Marie and/or her husband.

We were sorry to miss seeing  Marie (but she called and I talked with her).  However, I was happy to have my favorite Todo un Poco dish, Punjabi pizza, which is made with cauliflower, potatoes and Indian spices.  When we went to the restaurant before it was opened, Mannie made 3 pizzas for us, two traditional and the Punjabi, which became my favorite.

I am so proud of both of our "daughters" and what they have made of their lives, and happy that I could spend today with both of them...well, kinda.  Next time we'll get the dates right with Marie!

The Broken Bottle

One of the prompts for Holidailies today is "Tell us about a memorable holiday meal."  We've had many memorable holiday meals over the years, but some of the best came during the 10 year period when we hosted people from other countries, some students, some older people.  There were 70 of them from 14 different countries.

I remember the year when we had a girl from Japan, a guy from Venezuela and a guy from Congo who were here for Christmas and I got the brilliant idea that each of the foreigners should make something from his or her country to contribute to the dinner.

Chieko, from Japan, decided she wanted to make tempura, which I love.  I took her to the store to buy ingredients and when we got home, she admitted she had never cooked before and didn't have the slightest idea how to cook tempura.  I ended up making it and teaching her how to do it!

We had big crowds around our table in those years.  We have a relatively small house and our biggest year we had a sit-down dinner for 24 people, which involved moving furniture out of the family room and borrowing chairs from the local community center (conveniently, our kids worked there and would just pop down and pick up whatever we needed and return when dinner was finished).  The tables, put end to end stretched from one end of the room to the other.

I don't remember how many foreigners we had with us that year.  Vince, from Malaysia, lived with us for 3 years while finished high school and Marie, from Mexico, was finishing up her senior year in high school.  Marie's sister Sandra was visiting for Christmas.  It was the first time she had met any of us and she spoke very limited English

It was the year Jeri was working for a theatrical supply place in San Francisco and she bought her brother David a break-away bottle for Christmas.

Our kids, in those days, made movies of just about anything.  Naturally with a break-away bottle an intricate plot was quickly planned.  It involved lots of chase scenes and the kids spent most of the day filming the various scenes.

The final scene was to take place at the dinner table.  The final chase scene would be into the eating area, and climbing over the chairs, with David threatening Paul.  Walt was told he was to shout "Hey, you kids...cut it out," where upon David would pick up the break-away bottle, which looked like a bottle of wine and which was sitting on the table and hit Paul over the head with it.

It went very well and everybody was kind of watching, while still eating, nobody really very upset because this was so common in our house that they were used to it.

But when David grabbed the bottle and hit Paul, Sandra, who was NOT used to it and who didn't speak enough English to know that it was all just an act, just about had a heart attack.  We had to calm her down while Marie explained what was going on.  When she finally realized she thought it was funny, but for awhile there we scared the dickens out of her.

Vince is now an American citizen and a big mucky muck with his own company.  He has a big house here in Davis and a wonderful family, which includes a set of twins.

Marie is married and she and her husband own a restaurant, Todo un Poco in nearby Elk Grove.  She has been Citizen of the Year in the town where they live and her restaurant has been on "best of..." lists for the Sacramento area. She was recently featured with a full page photo and 3 page article in the local business magazine.

Sandra has a son and works in the restaurant with Marie.  Fortunately she has recovered from the shock of seeing the Sykes family in a little too much action!

I have to admit that contemplating our subdued Christmas this year, I miss those crazy days and "Mom's annual Christmas Crisis" before the guests arrived. 

A Long Day

The day started out taking my mother to the beauty shop at Atria for her 10 a.m. appointment.  The beauty shop is not open on Fridays, but Lucy, the beautician, made an exception and came in especially for my mother, so she would look good when I take her to lunch with her friends in San Rafael tomorrow.

The transformation was striking.  She's been looking like the Wicked Witch of the West for weeks now.  Her old self would be appalled at how she looked going to meals at Atria.  But once she got her hair washed and set and her curls brushed out, I loved how happy she looked.  Sadly, it is obvious that she will never be able to do this by herself again.  The beauty shop has moved upstairs and it involves (a) knowing that it's upstairs, (b) finding the elevator, (c) knowing which button to push, and (d) navigating TWO hallways to get to the place.  It was blatantly obvious that my mother was incapable of doing any of those things, so I guess I'll be taking her for hair appointments from now on.  It takes about an hour from start to finish and I read in the shop for awhile, but the chair was uncomfortable, so I moved to the couch outside and that was better.  Now that I know how long it takes, next time I might get something done while she's in the shop.

She can't retain the fact that we are meeting her friends tomorrow, so each time I mention it to her, it's like a fun new surprise all over again which, other than being tedious for me is kind of fun watching her get excited about it.

After a long nap that left me completely disoriented for a few minutes (I thought it was morning, not afternoon), I got a bunch of stuff cleared up on the internet and then we headed off to Elk Grove to our Mexican daughter Marie's restaurant, Todo un Poco.  She had invited us to come because she knew it would be a slow night for her and she would be able to visit more.  She was hoping we could come this day because her mother is visiting from Mexico and though we never have chats (there being a language barrier), we do smile and laugh and hug.

The restaurant doubles as a unique art gallery, and Marie sat us in a corner under this little unassuming portrait of Zapata.

The restaurant is filled with such amazing paintings, some with a touch of humor, such as this pairing.

Marie got us settled with two bottles of wine and 2 glasses each, figuring we would do a wine tasting of two different wines.  I told her that as the designated driver, I would only drink a little.  She brought us menus to choose our meal, but in the meantime she went off to get "a few appetizers."

This included meat balls, some Mexican gnocci, a spaghetti dish with cilantro and something I couldn't quite identify, but which had mole sauce.  When we had eaten our fill of these, out came a bowl of paella.

Then she asked if we were ready to order dinner!  We told her we had just eaten our dinner, so she brought out fried bananas and churros.

...AND cookies her mother had bought that afternoon.  We were stuffed and she sent us home with all the leftover paella. And a bottle of wine.

We had a chance for a long visit.  This girl, who came to us, very nervous, at age 18 in 1989 has had the most extraordinary life, has accomplished so much, has so much about to happen to her.  The walls of her restaurant are filled with accolades for her restaurant, which has been "restaurant of the year" a couple of times, and Marie was Elk Grove's Citizen of the Year in 2012. I am proud that we were a part of her "coming of age," and of pushing her out the door to go do something for herself. 

It was 11 when we got home (after stopping to buy cottage cheese for the dogs) and I have to get off to sleep if I'm to leave early tomorrow to get my mother to her luncheon.  I suspect that in familiar surroundings, with old friends, and with her new hair do, she will be more like her "old self" for a few hours.  I am very much looking forward to experiencing that.