The woman sitting next to me on the plane last Thursday was heading to Littleton for a wedding. She’d baked 350+ cookies for the rehearsal dinner and they were all in 2 carry-ons in the overhead bin above our heads. Six varieties, all carefully cooled and packed in parchment paper.
I don’t know her name, but I know her oldest child is turning 35 and she loves a bakery in Detroit called “Sister Pie.” I know she’s on the 19th book of a murder mystery series, the title of which I scribbled down in the worn out pages of my Harry Potter notebook, and she has two ovens in her house. She was a fabulous example of what Bizzy calls “Single Serving Friends.” You know, the people you meet while traveling, with whom you share your innermost soul, and then never see them again.
The Cookie Flyer gave me my “R” bake, which I will try when I return to the Scullery and have time to make a mess again. Her favorite bakery has a recipe for “Robert Redford Cookies,” which (in a nod to my mom) I cannot miss an opportunity to explore. They look fantastic. Pictures will be coming soon…
I was only a couple hours into my adventure and already my notebook was gathering new ideas in hot pink marker. I tend to color code my adventures.
The ideas have not stopped flowing.
I have signed up for CrossFit, added new music groups to my playlists, redesigned the dart board set-up (in my mind) in our Laundry Room bar, written a new character into my novel, and percolated ideas for more family trips.
I have crossed paths with a student who is working towards her welding certification, a man who is celebrating the one year anniversary of his decision to leave Alaska, a woman who went to law school back in the day and thinks her daughter should follow in her footsteps, and a bartender who didn’t know how to make a cosmopolitan. She now knows.
I chatted with an older couple who have recently found out that the husband has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and his wife is more terrified than he admits to be. He doesn’t want her to worry. I watched my niece’s boyfriend empathetically pick up a stranger’s crying child after he fell from his booster seat in a restaurant and hand him carefully to the child’s mother around the other side of the table.
This morning’s coffee comes with pages of hot pink markings in my notebook, and the Irish breakfast on the menu is guaranteed to bring good fortune.
I am so excited for the day!
Hillary Danaher 