The More The Merrier

So I forgot to mention that we had guests staying with us last week. That's right, guests. A pair of them! in our tiny little apartment. I admit that the cozy quarters crossed my mind when John first mentioned that his friend Joey and his lady friend Lauren would be rolling through town for a few days. For those who haven't yet had the pleasure, our house is no larger than 450 square feet and 100 of those feet are taken up by bicycles and our larger than necessary bathroom. Which leaves less than a hundred square feet per person, divided equally.

They arrived Sunday and spent all day at this big bluegrass festival in San Francisco, where John found them and led them back to our place. And much as I had worried, they soon showed me what it means to say The More, The Merrier.


The two of them are currently on a long drive down the west coast, before Lauren departs on a three or so month tour of the globe through Camaroon, India and Thailand. Am I remembering that correctly now? I think so. Their vehicle is the above pictured truck, which has an actual bed snuggled in back, if you can believe it. They sleep on an air mattress, on top of some sleeping pads, on top of a platform and underneath that, they have those flat boxes to store their clothes and personal effects. It's like a little portable pretend house on wheels and sounds so much nicer, to me anyway, than regular old camping.


Within 24 hours, I felt like they'd been living in our living room for years, in a good way. The two of them hail from Virginia and Tennessee and had such fine manners as I have not seen maybe ever. I had known that Joey was pretty great, down to earth and fun and generous, but Lauren was a nice surprise: sweet and hilarious, with great personal style in clothes and in the way she'd hang out in the kitchen with me while I was washing the only pot she'd dirtied while cooking us dinner. She's one of those really cheerful people, in the very best meaning of the word, that made me remember being vastly ambitious about life once upon a time, and wonder what ever happened to that part. Not to gush or anything, but the two of them are just very quality people.

To be more specific: they washed more than their share of the dishes, and our kitchen enjoyed the longest streak of cleanliness in all the history of its being our kitchen when they were with us; they were happy to go to bed around 11--Lauren almost always in her pajamas by 9, a girl after my very own heart; AND, on their final night in Oakland, John and I arrived home to dinner on the table, coordinated entirely without us. Well, goodness. I was certainly sorry to see them go.

Friends who feel like family have a way of making our little apartment feel more like Home. That, and the fact that Joey makes biscuits...

Via Philadelphia

People out here ask me all the time, "Where are you from?"

It's a perfectly reasonable question, especially because here in San Francisco most of the residents have relocated from somewhere else. The concentration of the young, attractive, healthy and progressive is just too high for any natural urban evolution. We tend to flock here in droves, and so when people inevitably ask me the big question, I usually just say Wisconsin because it's shorter than the truth.

While Wisconsin is certainly where I was born, and where I was raised, and where I go when I'm going Home, the truth about where I am from is somewhat more hairy. I feel like I did a fair amount of growing up in New York State, where I went to school, in New York city, where I first learned to know a city, in St. Petersburg where I learned to go it alone and mostly, in Philadelphia, where I made my first permanent home.

These days there seems to be a great divide between the people I know who pick up and leave to travel the world and live out of some combination of a tote bag, a bicycle pannier and a backpack, and the people who go somewhere to stay, to sign a lease and build a life in a single place. While both have attractive qualities, I've always fallen quite softly into the latter group because of how happy I am to settle in. Knowing my neighbors, building a routine, hanging up curtains and learning the best parts of a city are things I count as blessings.

And yet, I have an eagerness to live in new places, which has now carried me into my fifth urban residence since high school. So when I'm asked where I'm from, I have such a compound sentence at the ready. "Well..." it always starts. "Wisconsin, via New York State via Philadephia."

My hybrid loyalties to both the nomads and the settlers has made this most recent move bittersweet. And this weekend we're headed to Philly and it will be my first visit since leaving that great city last August. A tiny part of me is nervous that I'll feel more at home while I'm there visiting that past-tense landscape than I do out here in California. It will be a good litmus test for me, to sort out my mix of feelings around our move to the west coast; the lingering regret over leaving a life we loved and the strength of conviction that we did the right thing, for the sake of the adventure. Change, I'm always reminding myself, is a good thing.



I'm excited beyond words for these next five days, whatever the result. I think I'll count happy visits back in the "Advantages to Moving" column of my pros and cons chart...or would if I had one of those.

Rituals

I think I may have finally figured it out. Why I always seem to suffer that annual letdown that comes officially on Jan. 2 but sometimes as early as Dec. 26th, the pit in your stomach, the relief wrapped in boredom that is to welcome the mundane after-party of the holiday season. Luckily this year, I had an elixir. A freelance gig that paid better than most, a newly painted living room and the active ingredient: a visit from some dear friends. Gerik and Annette were the perfect pair of guests because they were so relaxed, so happy with anything you decided to take them to and because they had some other friends around to show us fun that we sort of haven't seen since Philadelphia. Our time together involved milkshakes, people. And Brunch. But even though we did lots of things last weekend, there were these little beverages on Sunday evening made from Krupnik, a polish honey vodka, that nearly stole the show.

The flame was elusive, but these were in fact ablaze.

First of all, this honey vodka is not to be found just everywhere, which makes them fairly special. And they require a little effort, more than merely a sufficient pour, which elevates them yet further. To the husky shot, you add several beans of coffee and then light the alcohol on fire. The heat serves to mildly roast the beans, while it also infuses the drink so slightly with the flavor of the coffee. It will burn for several minutes and may even snuff itself out in time. After the flame is out, the top rim is squeezed with a wedge of lemon and then some into the drink as well. The result should be consumed while warm but by sipping, not shooting and the flavor is well, roasty. Powerful notes of a substantial proof with the caramel notes of a soft whiskey, I'd say. Though we had these on a mild January evening in California, they're more aptly suited to a colder climate.

Having them fixed so carefully at a real bang of a barbeque, amid a fair amount of bustle, made me remember what I used to really cherish about my time in Russia: the ritual of food and drink, the specific rules to be followed guiding their consumption and the absolute devotion to them shared by all. I owe my own experience of krupnik to Gerik and Annette's friend Ben, whose own time in Poland I'm sure guides this persuasion of his for ritual. I'd tell you to find some of the stuff to try for yourself, but what I would mean is, you should probably just find a Polish friend to make you one.