A Chronology

Well we had a wonderful visit but, as we were reminded as the day went by,  things with Ruta and Neville rarely go according to plan. When they decided to move back to India, they told us that they were both working far too hard and not really getting anywhere, and I thought to myself, 'you can go back to India but you can't leave yourselves behind'....

Starting at 11am we had a series of texts from Ruta saying that there were no rental cars available  anywhere, followed by one saying they had located one, followed by one at 1:25 saying that they had gone to pick it up only to be told half an hour later that there wasn't one., followed by one saying that the friends they were staying with were loaning them theirs.

 They finally arrived at 6pm with Mira and Lola who were 3 and 6 when we last saw them 12 years ago and are now gorgeous young statuesque women . Ruta's final text had been from down the street, which by this time was pitch dark,  so John went down to the bottom of the driveway and led them up to the house.

Drinks were poured , cheese and crackers were produced, and we fell to catching up.. It was as if they had never left. We learned that last year, during Covid restrictions, they moved to Milwaukee Wisconsin and opened a cafe. At 8 o'clock we started thinking about dinner and at  8:15 we decided to order pizza.

 Over slices of pizza and a salad which Ruta and I made (mostly Ruta) while John and Neville went to pick up the pizza, conversation continued non-stop, the girls joining in with their memories and repeatedly fetching Spike's ball from underneath the couch .

At 10pm it was decided that we hadn't finished and they needed to spend the night. Extra toothbrushes and other essentials from the guest bathroom were retrieved from the closet where I had stashed them while work on the bathroom was going on. One of the two blow-up beds refused to blow up, so Lola used cushions from the couch, along with every extra blanket and quilt in the house.

Conversation continued this morning over coffee and tea. We heard the saga of the the series of cafes they  opened in Goa. Nobody could remember if they had lived in 6 or 9 different place before settling into a house they built and still own there. 

Showers were taken despite the fact that the glass door is yet to be installed. It didn't seem to matter, so I'd say the remodeled guest bathroom has now been fully inaugurated. 

 A t 10 am we repaired to Trail House where breakfast and more coffee were taken . We told them about the fires and the evacuations which have punctuated our life here.  The girls told stories about what they remembered from the Berkeley house, and seemed to have fallen in love with Spike.

At 12:30  I got a text reminding me of a 12:30 appointment which I thought was at 1:30. Hasty farewells were said (far better than long drawn out ones) and we parted with promises from them to return next year to cook dinner. 

When we got home we found a drawing of Spike, which Lola had been working on most of the time they were here, propped up on the kitchen counter. It is my final extra of the year.

The house feels strangely empty now. ....