Life: Idiotropic

It's sad when you look back seven days and cannot remember even the slightest detail from what was just one week ago. No age jokes, please. I'm not old yet. But really, it shouldn't be so hard. Tuesday... Tuesday... nope, nothing.

Thanks to my handy, dandy calendar on the computer, I do have some memory joggers from the rest of the week. Seriously, if it weren't for my calendar and the photos that I take, I think that every day would be Groundhog's Day.

Thankfully, it's not all a blank. Last Wednesday our conversation group met at my house which is why, sadly, I have no pictures. We had strata together - one I made with stale sesame broetchen, spinach, artichoke hearts and onion. They liked it enough to have seconds. Then I made up 1.5 recipes of pie dough and made both a traditional apple pie and an apple galette. This is the second time that I've "taught" apple pie to a group of international friends and again they seemed surprised that there are no eggs in it. It turned out great - and we had fun laughing, cooking, and talking over coffee, strata, and fresh, hot pie. Apparently apple pie dough is similar to something both the Turkish and Italians use in other dishes... I have yet to figure out exactly what though... when their words begin flying in foreign tongue, I sometimes have a hard time catching them enough to stop and ask for details. Someone hand me a butterfly net.

Thursday was, um (moment to check calendar) - Oh... among a myriad of errands and cookie baking, a lovely, ever so needed, completely relaxing time with Lorella sitting at her house drinking Italian espresso, then sitting at Cafe Immendorf sipping latte machiatos and mmmm-ing over our erdbeer tortchens. Watched a group of 60's-ish men on bicycles completely clad in bicycle attire saunter in for their beer all saying "hallo" and various complementary greetings - a bunch of flirtatious older men strutting their stuff. And then just sat, relaxed, basked in the sun and the quiet, and talked. Lorella is another one of those forever friends with whom I hope to never lose touch with. She is, as she's always been, absolutely fabulous!

Our last night. My last night as president. A member's only bingo night. I had cookies, salsa, chips, stuff for our charity, and a bunch of IWC travel mugs all together. Got there early, set up, watched people jump in without question and help thinking wow... this is it... it's time. I can go. They'll be OK. And the night went off without a hitch. I was the Bingo caller which aside from a tired voice after, is actually kind of fun. I spent the night watching the crowd, catching bits of conversations, smiling at my friends aware of small inside jokes, remembering so many fond memories, and thinking about good bye. For most of these people, this night was good bye. Towards the end I thanked them for the time and the opportunity then introduced them to their new president, my friend, Francesca. Just thinking about it is sad for me. This has been the best 3 years of my life, I think. So many people, blessings, opportunities... mostly people though. I will miss the people.

Late night, early morning. Traipsing all over Maastricht with Arianna and her second grade class looking at the Roman fortifications and looking through the Museum of Natural History. Boy. It's hard to be a second grader... all that walking, all that looking, all those coffee shops, and not a minute to stop for a cuppa Joe. So sad. The kids loved the trip. We learned about Roman toilets all lined up together in a half-circle, so the kids sat down on stones set where a Roman toilet lies beneath the pavement and posed straining for a photo (not my idea - it was a boy's mom). We saw a statue of a horse that was definitely a boy. We saw the toilet in a guard post in the old wall and a statue of a bear with human hands. These were the highlights. The kids also loved the rooms upon rooms of old bones and taxidermy at the natural history museum, a place that has me thoroughly convinced that I am really more of a zoo person. We lunched by the statue of d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer who died in Maastricht at the age of 62, in combat from a bullet to the throat. The kids shopped for tacky souvenirs - pens and ceramic "wooden" shoes. And at the end of a 7 hour day out, we finally headed home.

Exhaustion comes in the form of pizza take-out from Il Genios and a shared bottle of wine with good friends. My kind of Friday night.

Photos: 1) A large gold framed advertisement hanging on the outside wall of a restaurant in Maastricht 2) Sculpture of a extinct blue-lipped giraffe with a lady whose arm moves to pet it when the merry go round nearby turns. This was the location of several caged bears in the 60's before the people protested that it was too sad. 3) 16 second graders huddled around the statue of d'Artagnan in Maastricht. 4) Arianna posing on the bridge over the Maas river with a lovely view of Maastricht in the background - or it would be, except that it was raining and the umbrella covered all.

Tiara quote of the week: "guys are so confusing. they're moods change. they'll be like one way and then another. it's like they're PMSing or something. And they think us girls are confusing."