| 10:52p |
Birthday #7--Foster City, California
Today was so s-l-o-w at the winery that there is nothing to tell. Perhaps one reason for the lack of visitors was the pouring rain. Anyway, before hitting the sack I will try to remember another birthday.
When I first came back from Japan to start to school after Frank and I had legally separated, my little daughter, Ronnie, came with me and we went house hunting together. We decided on a spacious apartment in Foster City, and of all the places I have lived I think it was the most comfortable. It had two big bedrooms, two baths, a lovely living room opening to a balcony where I fed sparrows every day, a kitchen and a dining room. There was a pool in the garden and a Sauna and exercise room. The rent was $500 a month!!! Unbelievable when I think of it now. I went back some years later when I was again apartment hunting, and the price had gone up to $1500.oo a month.
The apartment building was across the road from the bay, and there was a raised path for walking and bicycling that ran north under the San Mateo bridge and clear up to San Francisco Airport. Immediately across the path from us was a spit of land, and it was here that thousands of birds often settled . I loved the early morning when I started out for school, and the sun was rising over the bay.
After high school I attended a secretarial school for a year, but other from that I had had no advanced education. I spent the next year and a half working for an A.A. degree at San Mateo Junior College. Frank came to California and took Ronnie back to Japan, but I had several of my children staying with me off and on. The main guests were Monique and her British “friend”, Anthony. We had known Anthony in Japan, and he was famous for being a master chef among other things. As Christmas approached Anthony went hunting for all the necessities for Christmas dinner. Chief among his purchases were “crackers” for each person to explode and find a little toy inside, cranberries for sauce, the makings for Pate, and those small green “cabbages” only that isn’t their name, and I can’t think of it right now. Christmas morning he went to work and by afternoon we had a magnificent meal. Early Christmas morning, while opening presents, he also made some delicious drinks with Champagne and Orange Juice.
Two days later it was my birthday, and bless his heart, Anthony, after asking me what kind of cake I wanted, baked a beautiful layer cake and iced it with Orange frosting. I was so grateful to him, and it saddened me terribly later, after he and my daughter had been married for a few years, that they divorced. He is now in Uganda working for a
British company, and she is in New Zealand with a new husband and two young children. But the memories of that Christmas and birthday will always remain . |