I lunched today with Nadine and two of her friends who are now becoming my friends. Nadine was born in Egypt and was raised in Canada. She speaks French. Sonia is French-born; Toni is German-born. It does seem to me that I form particularly easy bonds with the foreign born and I attribute it to being first generation Greek.

We all agree on everything and we laugh a lot. We went to a little restaurant called Brew Baby, a totally inappropriate name for this charming European style place with a stunning patio, wall fountains and good food. It’s in a crummy part of Cape Coral, a little oasis surrounded by a Holiday Inn and other bland buildings. After lunch, we drove to a beach on the river (the Calusahatchee – hatchee means river in the Calusa Indian language). We sat at a picnic table on the sand and talked for another hour or so.

Sonia, who resembles Edith Piaf, and once studied dance, would occasionally break into French to explain something and Nadine would give her the words in English. I love to hear her talk.

Later I took a bike ride and ignored the artwork I should have prepared for tomorrow. I made dinner. I did a few chores and I sat down to watch TV. I had totally forgotten that I had to clean the refrigerator. The refrigerator story is a bummer. We were told it needs a very expensive major repair and it is only three years old, but our warranty had ended. The condenser and some other part need replacing.

The repair fellow told us to buy a warranty (the price was reasonable) defrost the refrigerator for 24 hours, start it up again and it would run okay for a while. Then in two months call again and ask for him and he would do the major repair under warranty conditions and that would save us $500 or so.

The day before I had transferred all the food to the refrigerator in the garage (utterly grateful that we had a spare because our freezer is loaded) and we turned it off. If I wanted to reload it tomorrow, I would need ideally to turn it on tonight so that it would be cold by the time of the transfer. I couldn’t do the clean up if I turned it on, so at 10 p.m. I started and the job took three hours.

Ed mumbled something about I should come to bed and “do it tomorrow”. My idea of Hell is waking up to a grubby kitchen and a stinky fridge. Also, even though I hadn’t done any art homework, I intended to go to the class. It’s the next to last for the season. I wouldn’t get home from that till 1:30, so it would be 4 before I could start the cooling process, and another 12 hours before I could load it. Then, could I relax? No, because I’d be making dinner. In my mind, there was no choice.

Everything had to be taken apart. During its progressive loss of cooling, colonies had sprung up and were forming a government. I put an end to these upstarts. Usually I manage to clean a drawer now and then, but doing the whole job from scratch (and trying to remember how to put it back together) is a biggie. And that’s what I get for letting my mind wander. It's now after 2 a.m. Goodnight.

xx, Teal