Tuesday 6 December 2011
Happy Saint Nicholas Day, Nicole!! In many Catholic European countries, your namesake saint's feast day is almost as important an event as your birthday. We don't go quite that far but we did remember Nicole with two small indulgent guilty pleasure gifts: a big bottle of Coke, and a can of Pringles (sour cream and onion), all for her alone.
But it was another's birthday, or rather two people's, so Charles and Bill set out late in the morning to find the bakery where two cakes had been ordered, plotted after Charles discovered Facebook had busted our friend Don Snowden as having not just a birthday Dec. 6, but one ending in a zero, therefore requiring a celebration, no matter how reluctant the birthday boy might be. Once we started plotting, Bill and Claire started inviting people under the pretext of another one of their popular "happy hour" parties ( happy hour wasn't 5-7 PM, more like 9 til midnight or so), and when she invited her friend Ajfan she found out it was her birthday too! So two cakes were needed and Ajfan did the ordering but now they had to be retrieved.
They must be good cakes, Charles thought, since the bakery was packed! He and Bill got an additional slice of pizza and an empanada and strolled off to a beautiful plaza with a large fountain to savor, talk, and people watch. This is how they do it in Valencia, in Spain, and most of Europe: the pace of life is slower not because people are lazy but because they value such things over work-work-work for just the acquisition of more money. Sure, Bill's retired and Charles is taking a year's break, but we'd seen it everywhere, the shared value of people, art, open air, leisure, family, culture, green space, friends, over frenetic activity to get ahead. Ahead to what? Lots of money when you die on your last day of work? Europe and America had things they could learn from each other.
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| Working on the blog |
People started arriving around 8:30 PM and an hour later there was a crowd of more than a dozen in the smallish apartment, Spaniards of course but also Yanks, Brits, Germans, Poles. Claire and Bill had prepared their signature chicken curry wraps, Dian and Nicole whipped up a pesto pasta, and arrivees brought more food and of course lots of wine, even a bottle of local sparkling stuff. Good music was DJed by Charles from Bill and Claire's collection, specifically to what he figured Don's taste was, lots of new acquaintances were enjoyed and the Andrews felt privileged to be welcomed into this outstanding Valencia community.
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| Don, Charles and Heinz |
Then the lights were dimmed and the cakes brought out and yes, HB2U was sung, but as a special surprise present another song was sung by Nicole and Dian, written that afternoon by Dian: a ditty about both Don and Afjan, sung to the tune of the Doors' "People Are Strange" (which LA Don later said was his very favorite Doors song). Both seemed delighted by the tribute. The crowd thinned out later and Claire and Bill brought out yet another special treat, a bottle of the good stuff, Taittinger champagne. It don't get much better than that.
Then the lights were dimmed and the cakes brought out and yes, HB2U was sung, but as a special surprise present another song was sung by Nicole and Dian, written that afternoon by Dian: a ditty about both Don and Afjan, sung to the tune of the Doors' "People Are Strange" (which LA Don later said was his very favorite Doors song). Both seemed delighted by the tribute. The crowd thinned out later and Claire and Bill brought out yet another special treat, a bottle of the good stuff, Taittinger champagne. It don't get much better than that.
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