Gluttony

Kaki fruit is available only a few weeks a year. They are ultra sweet and I love them.

Lobster has always been my favourite food. Even when I was allergic I ate it. However often Maine lobster price in Europe would mean selling my first and only born child and she regularly refuses to be put on the market.

However, Picard, a store that is only freezers and frozen foods has cooked frozen Maine lobsters for 8.95 Euros. We bought two in France, took them to the chalet and opened a bottle of champagne. Does life get better? I don't think so.

 Through the window of the Café Centrale where we went  for brizolée

The restaurant is so typically Swiss.

And after years of missing it, La Brizolée.

We won't discuss the meals the next two days at different mountain restaurants.

Music in the air

Grand Saconnex regularly does unusual flower arrangements. Not the prettiest village and in walking distance of the airport, but I love their imagination. The piano isn't a real piano, but I could imagine the music anyway.

Memory or the lack thereof

J and I had mumpfed down salads with mountain herbs, macaroni and cheese and rösti at our favourite Valais chalet restaurant.

We were waiting for our desserts, blueberry tarte on a chocolate-lined crust and fig tiramisu, when I asked THE QUESTION: "Do you remember the name of the Calista Flockhart character on Brothers and Sisters."

I saw the I-would-have-if-you-hadn't-asked expression on J's face.

"Ally?"

"That was Ally McBeal," I said.

"Something with a y. Sally, Fally, Dally . . ." J. looked a bit desperate.

We rattled all the other names of the characters: Nora, Sarah, Scotty, Rebecca, Holly, Seth no Saul, Kevin, Tommy . . . although we struggled with the kids, Cooper and Paige.

To make ourselves feel better we named the characters on How I Met Your Mother. Ted, Marshall, Robin and Bonnie.

"Bonnie?" J had raised a eyebrow.

"BaRney," I said. "You know I speak Bostonian and have no need for the letter 'r'.

We couldn't take too much pleasure at that memory feat. We'd watched an episode the night before.

To walk off the meal we followed the gurgling brook into the woods before heading home. Names were bouncing in our heads: Stephanie, Desdemona, Cleopatra...nothing that might be possible.

We took the long way home over the narrow (I say treacherous) mountain roads. We had no trouble remembering that last year at this time we'd stopped to take photos of snow-covered trees and my total lack of ability to hit a target with a snowball. This year the trees are late changing colours.

As soon as we got in the chalet's door, I fired up the computer.

www.imdb.com
Brothers and Sisters
Cast

Ahhhhhhhhh. J sank into the chair opposite me. I thought I'd give her a clue and held my fingers down moving them back and forth against my thumb as if I were calling a cat.

"Dog?" J said.

I mimed a cat washing her face. Only when I called in a cooing tone, "Here . . . " did J say with obvious relief "KITTY!!!!!!!!!!"

She suggested I might not be good at playing, playing, playing . . .

"Charades," I filled in the gap.

This morning in the Sunday paper is an article: "Les trous de mémoire sont le plus souvent sans gravité" or memory lapses are usually harmless."

That is good to know.

Hope chests

What made me think of a hope chest at 2 a.m. last night, I have no idea.

The old tradition was that a young woman would have a chest, preferably cedar-lined to store the linen and her trousseau in the hopes of marriage. The items in those days when things were used up before they were discarded were designed to last at a lifetime.

Many of my mother's friends had them at the bottom of their beds where they used to store blankets or window clothes.

I'm the probably the last generation where a hope chest played any part in the life of a young woman and even my generation was getting away from the idea, although adverts for Lane Hope chests still appeared in Seventeen Magazine among the pages and pages of advertising for the latest color lipstick and clothes.

One of my friend's boyfriend bought her one as a pre-engagement present.

The best known brand came from a Virginia company, started by John Lane. The company closed in 2001.

The ad is from 1945.

I never had a hope chest. In fact, I never had the little girl dream of being a wife, although the idea of having a beautiful wedding in the sense of one good party did flick through my imagination.

My early marriage came more from being head over heels in love or so I thought at that time. I never thought of being a wife in the sense of setting up a home. When my future sister-in-law asked what my kitchen colours would be so she could get an appropriate gift, I hadn't known I was suppose to think of colours.

None of my ineptitude as a traditional bride meant that I lacked hope...I only lacked the chest.

As I lay awake at 2 a.m. last night I thought wouldn't it be nice to have a different kind of hope chest, not the huge-store-blankets-and-winter-clothes-in kind, but a small box where I could write, preferably with my silver tipped plume pen in perfect calligraphy. What would I put in it? The list is not in order.

Personal hopes

Many years with Rick
A continuation of my wonderful friendships
My latest novel being accepted
My newsletter expanding
Health

Hopes for others in my life

My daughter being settled in ways that make her happy
My housemate's No 1 and No 2 sons being settled in ways that make them happy
The health and happiness of my friends

Hopes beyond my immediate circle

The safety of my friends in Syria
The end of hunger
The end of war

These are hopes of all sizes, but they would only require a very small box. It does not have to be cedar lined.