surprise package!

So there I was yesterday morning … had just finished my FIRST NEW CLASS with a very charming friend of Agustín’s, and was working on my friend Lizzie’s new Twitter page for her fabulous Folk House Cafe & Bar in Bristol, when the doorbell rang and the postman said he had a package for me. I had no idea what it might be and was really taken by surprise when I saw it was from one of my oldest & dearest friends from Toronto, Darlene – and also her beautiful daughter Adrienne. So I opened it up and saw it was a whole whack of small blue-ribboned prezzies wrapped in yellow tissue paper, with good old Halloween kisses used for filler. It was hard not to cry, so I did. But you know, happy tears. I’d talked with Darlene on Skype during the summer, and just this week was thinking that I should send her a quick email so she’d know I was still thinking about her – and it turned out she’d also been thinking about me! Anyhow, if you want to see what was in the little packets, have a look below…

Of course, the really fabulous thing was how prettily and carefully wrapped everything was, each gift with a little label attached. I wonder if Darlene knows that blue is the “official ribbon colour” for colon cancer. You can click on the pics to see everything more clearly. Here is a list of what I got:

• 2 packets of RCMP cocktail napkins (how did they know?)
• wild forest dried mushroom mix (harvested by Indians?)
• limited edition CD – new indie band called The Buffalo Builders
• some Ontario saffron – the label said “coals to Newcastle”
• a gorgeous necklace & bracelet made by Adrienne
• some “fun money”
• pure maple sugar crystals
• a DVD of an award winning film by Guy Maddin called My Winnipeg
• loads of caramel Halloween kisses

I know their game … trying to make me homesick so that I’ll go back and visit. Which I would do in a heartbeat if I could afford it. When I first moved to Toronto as a young & rather fucked-up 25-year-old, Darlene took me in for awhile – I knew her cousins back in Winnipeg – and I was made to feel so at home and cared for. It was one of the loveliest times of my life. And D also taught me how to make the very best caesar salad dressing in the world – bonus! Many years later I had the pleasure of having a teenaged Adrienne come and stay with me in Seville for two summers. And well, they have just always felt like family, you know?

But it’s not just the gifts. It’s that totally out of the blue yesterday I was given this beautiful reminder that these two amazing people still love me and care about me, even after so long. And I imagined how much fun it must have been making up the package – just the sort of thing I love doing. To say it made my day would be a total understatement.  And the timing was perfect. This hasn’t exactly been my best week, but it’s picked up now.

Thanks for making me feel still lovable, guys.