Not Banks....

Last cappuccino in Rome.... I LOVE the spoon.

“A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”
― Coco Chanel
Having just finished a book review for a literary journal, I'm sitting in Starbucks taking a few minutes to relax before I head to another project.  While jazz plays on the shop speaker, I watch a guy at the next table playing with his iPhone and a couple at a different table talk about who knows what. At the table four feet from me, three women are talking about Thanksgiving and the approaching Christmas holidays. They're planning a shopping trip for a day they don't all have their kids.  A Monday or Tuesday would be fine, advises one of the gals. One of the others cannot do Monday or Tuesday because she has to pick up her kids.  Maybe Wednesday, the 9th?  They're starting early, so maybe they can have breakfast and lunch out...and they are NOT going to wear boots.

Va Bene is a coffee shop in LV, but I love the name... It's Good.

I don't like shopping.  I used to enjoy it, but after I opened my store, the magic wore off.  I also am not wild about wearing boots.  I hated wearing them when I was a child.  Remember those things we pulled over our shoes when it snowed?  Augh. I used to say I'd wear flipflops in the snow before I'd wear boots.  I have two pairs of "fashion" boots now. Since they are comfortable, I'll wear them at times , but only if I don't have to stand or walk a lot.  I'm more concerned with comfort than what I'm wearing on my feet....always have been.

I used to try to fit into these molds that people have. Mostly I did it because my parents would have a fit if I didn't.  One of my memoir students (writing about a nun smacking her for misbehaving during class) was shocked at my statement that a nun never hit me.  "Didn't you ever get in trouble?" she asked.  I shook my head.  "Never.  If a teacher would have ever called my house, I would have gotten it twice. I was way too afraid of what God and my father would do to me."

"You must have been an angel," she said.

"More like a saint," I replied.  "Two guys used to call me St. Christine."  It's the truth. They teased me unmercifully in grade school for never getting in trouble.  I preferred having a brown nose to a black-and-blue one.

It took me a long time to get over living in the mold my parents wanted me to live in. My father's death when I was 16 helped me break the shell. It's a long story not worth repeating in a short blog, but suffice to say that I didn't become a doctor.

Cafe con crema....espresso topped with a lot of unsweetened whipped cream.

 I used to think my childhood was horrible, but once I started writing and reading nonfiction, I realized that despite my dictatorial father and detestable paternal grandparents, life was okay. It wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad as the childhoods others withstood.  I made it through with the help of my mother's side of the family, my friends, and mostly with my husband who had a Norman Rockwell-type childhood.  He espouses two theories on life: "Everything happens for a reason," and "Everything will work out."  As much as I want to smack him when he says one of them, I think he's mostly right.

I think, perhaps, that's why listening to negative blabbing (government, politics, etc) bothers me so much. Life is good.

By the way, one of the ladies is now talking about going to a wedding in Cincinnati.  She said she loves marriage and that her mother told her she must because she's been married too many times.  "You're rivaling Elizabeth Taylor," her mom recently said.  "I'd rather be Angelina," the woman told her friends who have turned back to talking about Thanksgiving dinner.  Liz-a-lina is going to make cranberry sauce for her friends.

You know.... We are all so lucky to live in a world such as this. I love it.