The Last Supper

My friend Kathy and I had our very last lunch at Cafe Italia here in Davis. We've been having a monthly lunch for nearly 20 years, I think.  We don't see or talk with each other in between lunches, but have that one hour and a half each month, which we both enjoy.

Initially, because she was still working, we met at the Olive Garden in Sacramento, which was near her work.  When she retired, she decided that since I'd been driving 20 miles each month, it was her turn to drive over the infamous Yolo causeway,  a 3.2-mile long elevated highway viaduct on Interstate 80 that crosses the Yolo Bypass floodplain, connecting the cities of West Sacramento, California and Davis.

(In the wintertime it is flooded, in the summertime it is usually planted with rice and is also a wildlife preserve)

We tried a couple of restaurants in Davis, but Kathy isn't a "foodie," as she says, and prefers plain cooking, so when we found Cafe Italia it was perfect.  She usually has a plate of spaghetti ("light on the sauce").

(Those booths look quite familiar!).  I go for a French dip sandwich with horseradish.  

We sit and talk family and politics.  Walt is not big on discussing politics and it's nice to have Kathy to share frustration with.  During the campaign there was much hope that Hillary would pull it off.  Since the election, and especially the inauguration, there is growing depression at watching the gradual erosion of everything that made this country great to begin with.  I found that more and more yesterday we had little to talk about because it was all so depressing.

There was talk about where to have lunch next month.  Cafe Italia is being forced to close its doors because of expansion of the motel which owns it.  By the time of our next lunch, there will be no Cafe Italia.

I told her it might be irrelevant because the way his nibs is talking, we might be at war by then.  So frustrating watching two little boys just dying to play with their war toys, unfazed by what it would do to the world if they fire off those lovely nukes.

I listen to Trump talking about devastation that the world has never known before and wonder if he has any twinge of a feeling about the thousands of innocent civilians, Korean and Americans, adults and children, would be killed.  But no.  Sociopaths can't feel empathy and every decision he has made since he took the reins of office have shown me that there is absolutely no empathy in his soul.  Trotting out every poor sick or disabled person in the world will have not one iota of impact on this man when he talks about taking health care away from thousands of people.  He won't be happy until "Obama" is erased from history and he doesn't care who is hurt in the process.

So there wasn't much satisfaction in our discussion yesterday and once we had covered what's new with our respective children, it was time to pack it up, pay our bill, and say goodbye to Cafe Italia, which closes in 2 weeks.  

Walt and a group of retirees have breakfast there once a month too and will eat there for their last time next week.

Where will I be able to find crab cakes Benedict locally any more.....?

Goodbye, Cafe Italia.   You will be sorely missed (based on the FULL parking lot and people actually waiting for a table when we left I can tell that everyone in town is trying to get in for one last meal.)