Monday, November 26, 2012

A walk back in time

I spoke to a book club tonight at a new restaurant/caterer/cooking school in Fairmount. Actually they're not up for restaurant service yet but the catering, cooking school and chef's evenings seemed to be doing great. It's called Bastion, and the fascinating thing to me is that it is housed in the complex built in 1918 for the Edna Gladney Home for Unwed Mothers. I know the place well--we made four trips there to bring home babies.
I'm pretty sure that the room we spoke in is the same one where my ex- and I used to go talk to the girls because they wanted to know what kind of families would be raising their children. I could picture those evenings, and I could see the room--in a wing to our left, I think--where they brought the babies to us. I remember them handing me Megan--she was crying furiously, and her little legs were drawn up to her tummy in pain. I thought if I could just get her home and love her, it would all be all right. It wasn't--she had severe colic for the first six months of her life. I'm not sure where the maternity hospital and nursery were though I remember going to the nursery. It was all nostalgic, and I began my talk recounting my history with Gladney. My children never asked, "Where do babies come from?" They knew: you go to the adoption agency and bring home a new baby!
Dinner was delicioius. The Bastion has gardens, with fresh lettuce, arugula, and herbs. We dined on a green salad, goat cheese tart, quiche Lorraine, and a bountiful offering of desserts--chocolate bourbon praline torte, panna cotta with raspeberry coulis, and baba rhum torte. I tasted but I didn't finish anything. I've spoken to this group before several years ago, and I know several of the women, so it was fun--and informal.
Other than that, I did not do one productive thing today--just seemed to float through the day. Emails, Facebook, kind of getting my feet back on the ground after having been gone for five days. That post-vacation effect was evident in Jacob this afternoon too--I could not get him to concentrate on spelling. He ran out of attention span, and I ran out of patience--not one of our better afternoons. Still, I think we parted friends. Tomorrow I'll work on my blog book, but excuse me now: I'm going to read.

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