Sunday, August 10, 2008

These Are a Few of my Favorite Things...

...or a Lot of my Favorite Things. Hhhhheeeelllllpppp! I can't decide what to take to London and what to leave behind. Since I need clothing for four seasons, I need more than the 4 suitcases I can carry (between Llew and me, that is) to the UK. What's worse? The airlines have cut down on their baggage allowance and I am weighing each item carefully before adding it to my load.

The list is endless---Clothes, Shoes, Medication, Cosmetics and Toiletries, Books, Kitchen Doodads, Laptop Paraphenalia. It's all weighing me down--literally! Little by little, day after day, I have been adding things to my suitcases and despite paring down to the bare necessities, I am still taking way too much stuff. I am not a minimalist--that's for sure.

Chriselle spent Friday with me and brought along her new friend Rebekah to meet me. Lovely girl! So happy that Chrissie has a good friend close by. I will miss her dreadfully but we're talking about her making not just one but two trips while I am in London.

Meanwhile, my friends have been inundating me with last-minute invitations to social dos. Angie and Yvor had Llew and me over to their Stratford place for dinner to bid me goodbye. She cooked an incredible meal that included her signature Sweet Corn and Chicken Chowder and some scrumptious Bakhlava for dessert--how did she know this is one of my favorite desserts?

Then, yesterday, we spent a Sunday in the Park--no, not with George but with Susan de Souza, our dear friend who organized a lovely picnic at Central Park for her siblings and us. So there was her sister Nona and her brother Osmund and his family (wife Jacqui, daughter Michelle and mother-in-law Blanche). Susan outdid herself with a classy picnic hamper that included red and white wines, a variety of cheeses and crackers with three-layer hummus and bruschetta. Just when we thought that her hamper was incapable of conjuring any more treats, out came dinner--this magnificent baked salmon with a super fresh salad of spinach and gorgonzolla cheese and avocado with a balsamic vinaigrette--yummmmiiiie!

The finale was eavesdropping on a performance of Hair at the Delacorte Theater in the Park where Aquarius, their title song, had us raising our voices in song! The weather was exactly what we would have ordered, had we been asked; the Manhattan crowds were exhilarating and the picnic was the perfect end to our day which had begun at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we saw the special exhibit on J.W.M. Turner--a fitting preview of the kind of art I can expect to see in England.

I am slowly getting there--to England, I mean. And the butterflies in my tummy are turning somersaults!

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