Laurel
Wednesday May 23rd 2012, 11:43 pm
Filed under: Friends,Life

I wanted to make a blueberry cake (best recipe ever is here) and started to set up for it. (Thank you again for the pans, Don!)

Only, that bag in the freezer wasn’t blueberries after all. Huh. Mixed berries I could experiment around, but with strawberries? Too wet. I decided to run to Costco, hoping to get that done early in the evening so I could put my feet up and knit afterwards.

And then I checked some messages.

My friend Laurel was in the hospital. She moved a few years ago, still in the general area but far enough away to be a trek; we simply hadn’t seen each other in awhile.

That was going to be a goodly hike across bad traffic.

But I remembered all the people who had come to visit me in the hospital when I’d needed it–and how my laptop would go home with Richard at night so it wouldn’t walk away while I was asleep, meaning that once he left, I felt really truly alone. Every single person who had made the effort to visit had lifted some of that burden long beyond their time in that room.

And so I drove up to Redwood City and wandered around till I found her.

It was so good to catch up. She has a baby girl now to go with her two little boys? Cool! She showed me pictures. Such beautiful children! (Well, yeah, look at their parents.) She laughed and loved as she scrolled through my Parker photos on my Iphone.

I told her my first had been in kindergarten when my fourth was born; I remembered the intensity but also the joy of those years. We traded stories, we had a grand time, and the best was when she pointed to her tray and said it was the first meal she’d kept down in days. She should be home tomorrow.

I got out of there with no time to get to the Costco near home–but there was one a few blocks away. If I hurried I would make it.

The blueberries were in stock. (Not a sure thing at our local one.) So were a few other things that very much surprised me, because ours had discontinued them. That organic sharp cheddar is a small thing, but to me in the moment I saw it it wasn’t. Small favors…

The blueberry cake just came out of the oven–wait, there it goes… Now we just have to get Laurel home.


4 Comments so far
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blueberries and sharp cheddar — sounds like my kind of costco shopping trip (I was able to get fresh bing cherries yesterday — it’s now officially spring!) and a reward for the effort made to brighten someone’s day

Comment by Bev 05.24.12 @ 7:54 am

If you ever stop doing great things for other people, we’ll know that you are no longer with us.
BTW, Smart & Final, at El Camino and Grant Road, often has fruits on special sale – a pint of blueberries this week for $4.99.

Comment by Don Meyer 05.24.12 @ 9:15 am

What a sweet welcome home gift. And count me in; I love blueberries and sharp cheddar too. (And so do the dogs. The Knight will trade his berries for extra cheese, please?)

Comment by Channon 05.24.12 @ 12:45 pm

I’m glad you were rewarded with the cheddar, though I know you were rewarded by the visit, too.

Comment by twinsetellen 05.24.12 @ 4:25 pm



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