Colour coordination and eye rolls

If gold medals were given for eye rolling, my daughter would take the gold, especially if the contest were given for any discussion of colour. Llara accompanies the eye rolls with the words “Mother, Mother, Mother.”

Colours bombard me and I see patterns and shades that other people ignore. Therefore, I can match a miniscule stripe in my couch to five cross stitches in The Lady and The Unicorn tapestry Llara did for me.

I half wished she were on the Zürich-Genève train with me as I sat in the Elvintino dining car to have some Ceylon stick tea(www.sticktea.ch/presse.htm for a photo) and a croissant. As I took out my 10 CHF note, I noticed that part of the patterned yellow squares was exactly the same shade as the table cloth. I even folded the bill to hold them together to allow for the difference in material, paper and cloth. The yellow was a soft lemon with white and a touch of beige added. In my imagination, she was rolling her eyes across the ocean.

The waitress slammed my tea in front of me sloshing water out of the clear glass mug. The croissants were in a wicker basket saving her the work of having to give me one. She made no offer of butter or jam. I may be mistaken, but I thought I heard a growl.

A man in his late twenties or maybe early thirties, his hair slicked back, carrying a laptop asked me if any of the other three places at the table were frei. Ja, they were. I only chose a four-seater table because all the other eight tables were occupied.

The waitress deigned to take his order and slammed his coffee down. The meat on his meat and cheese breakfast platter almost did a Mexican bean jump when she put those down. He thanked her. She ignored him.

His eye roll would have rivaled even my daughter’s best. Maybe she had a bad morning, I said. He rolled his eyes again as he nodded. For a second I wondered what would happen if they had children. Eye left-up-right-down,left-up-right-down for eternity.