I had the great pleasure of having high tea at Ciocolat in Davis today. My friend Pat sent this
invitation: Nancianne, Lu and I are having "high tea" in lieu of lunch
at Ciocolat on
Friday, arrival 11:30-11:45. Would LOVE for you to be the fourth, on me.
Can you make that?
I certainly was not going to turn down an invitation for high tea
with three delightful, intelligent women in a place I know has delicious food, beautifully
presented. All 3 women have been friends of ours for years. All have been members of
the Davis Comic Opera Company. Pat is Lu's mother and also taught Jeri piano for 12
years. And Nancianne, in addition to a bunch of other things, is the lady whose
picture I take each March when she has her head shaved to raise money for childhood
cancer.
But it was another "Atria Syndrome Day" for me.
First, despite "11:30" being written on my calendar, I got it into my head that
I was supposed to be there at 10:30 and was racing around here trying to get my review of
last night's show written so I could leave here with a clear conscience.
Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to double check the invitation before leaving the
house.
After the last time that I left the camera at home, I wanted to be
sure to bring it. But I forgot. I was a couple of blocks away when I
remembered. That's OK, I thought to myself...I have my cell phone. I can use
that. But then I remembered the cell phone was plugged in to the charger on the
kitchen counter, so I turned around and returned home to get both the camera and the cell
phone.
I got there first and found our table on the deck. It was the
only one with a table cloth and there was a beautiful arrangement of roses on the table,
with a card that read "Pat," so I figured it was a good guess that it was
ours and I sat down to read my book before the others arrived.
There were nice looking plastic chairs, but not as sturdy as the
chairs you see everywhere. As I sat in the chair, I felt uneasy, worrying that I
would break the chair, but it seemed to hold my weight, so I continued to sit.
While I waited, I took a picture of the beautiful bouquet for Pat.
Lovely dark red roses with a white rose in the center.
[ photo ]
T
he others arrived and our high tea started. Started with
scones and lemon curd, then a lovely salad, then the sandwich service followed by the
desserts. The desserts were a "death by chocolate" little cake, which was
like fudge with frosting, then a molded chocolate tulip cup filled with raspberry mousse,
and finally a macaroon filled with what may have been a pistachio cream. They were
so beautiful I took another photo.
[ photo ]
While we were eating our desserts, our mutual friend Lee hopped up on
the fence outside the restaurant and asked Lu if she was going to finish her death by
chocolate. She handed it to him and he went on his merry way.
I really wanted a photo of the group, but felt uncomfortable
asking the waitress to take our picture, wondering if the others would mind, but finally
realized that these were all theater people who had their photo taken all the time, so I
handed the camera to the waitress and she took a group picture.
[ photo ]
She handed the camera back to me and I went to check to see if it
turned out all right. That's when I saw that ominous message "no memory card
inserted," which meant that there was no way to record the photo and I had lost all
three of my pictures. Grrr. I just told the waitress that it was fine and put
the camera away. I didn't want to admit my stupidity.
We continued eating our desserts and suddenly I felt the chair begin
to buckle under me. I was falling over backwards and no way to right myself.
Fortunately Nancianne steadied the chair until I could get out of it and I found a metal
folding chair and sat in that. These are the times when it is so embarrassing to be
my size!
Our high tea ended with a big dish of mixed berries (strawberries,
blackberries, raspberries and blueberries) surrounding a big bowl of whipped cream, and
then it was all over. We had had a lovely visit, enjoyed delicious food, escaped
major injuries from fragile chairs, and we were all ready for a nap. I was going to
visit my mother, but it was all I could do to drag myself home and into the recliner,
where I was nicely on my way to sleep when one of those damn robo calls roused me and I
was not able to get back to sleep.
But what a wonderful surprise the invitation was, and what a good
time I had with all four women. Thanks for including me, Pat!
In the evening, un-napped, we went to the Davis Art Center
Amphitheater to see a production of The Tempest, which I had never seen before.
It was a bit difficult to follow in spots, but I was able to bat out a review
before I went to sleep for the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment