Thursday, July 27, 2006

Notes from the countryside















Dear Marc, how are you? Are you on vacation? On your way to vacation? I’m a little bit more than half-way through.

We’re in the country side. Everyone loves it. The air is fresh, the water a fountain of youth, the wild strawberries ripe and life is a happy little cabaret, old chum. I’m the only one who’s having trouble adjusting. The country side, how are you supposed to cope?

I look at the birds, the grass, the trees. Ok. They’re nice. After five minutes I’m done. Let’s go back home. But noooo, it’s finally vacation time. Everyone else wants to stay around for weeks. Just relax they say.

But I can’t. I turn into vacation poison - a small, overheated red and sweaty bored person oozing discontent and lack of joy.















I tried. I picked blueberries. Buckets of wonderful, tasty blueberries, juicy and beautiful berries. I prepared a pie. Life is so great in the countryside. It took hours. In an effort to show my motherly love, I was just about to let Vanja sprinkle white chocolate over the pie before it hit the oven.

But just as the time came for sprinkling, Joel tipped the pie over and joyously watched the contents of the pie spread all over the somewhat dirty kitchen floor.

I tell you, I contemplated scooping it all up and baking it as it was.

But once, I was invited to a dinner where our lovely hostess dropped our joint dinner, a lasagna, on an old rug, cheese topping facing down. She cussed and then pulled a surprise on her hungry dinner guests. She simply turned rug and lasagna around, scraped the rug against the edge of the casserole and served us the adventurous dish.


















She had just cleaned the apartment, and I'm sure the rug was dirtfree. It was fine. We all survived. We just kept wondering if it might not had tasted better had we not known that the dinner had kissed the floor.

I did not want to let my friends wonder about stuff like that. I rinsed the berries from dirt and crust and started over again. As one of my friends said, ”these are exclusive berries, handpicked twice!”.

Such is life in the countryside. Blueberry pie often equals a catastrophe. It’s time to get back to the real world, which also makes me cry. But for other reasons.

Love

-e

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Aw, what a depressing story.

I don't think I've ever had a homemade pie.

Claudie said...

What is that drink? It looks delightful - almost enough to cheer a person up.

Linda said...

I am the same way. I like to get away from the city, but I'm bored almost instantly from the slow pace. However, I'm inspired to pick berries and make pie. I haven't done that in a long time.

emi guner said...

Claudie, it's wild strawberries and vodka. It's good.

Anonymous said...

take this holy time to reinvent yourself, to create, to start new projects. the social scientists call it creative ocium, when u are not doing anithing u let your mind work building new conceptions. try, invent, do something diferent!!
with love

Denise

Anonymous said...

Ohhh, those berries look delicious! They are half the size of the one we have at my local supermarket in New Jersey so yours must be extra yummy. I don't want to think what's in our hummer-size berries...
I'm completely aghast that your hostess served you lasagna off the floor. I don't think lasagna qualifies for the "if it's on the floor for five seconds or less you can eat it" rule. And doesn't that rule only apply when someone is alone in the privacy of their own home? I'm too much of a germiphobe to even do that... Ewww.