Important discovery for me. Today, I learned that hot chocolate and hot cocoa are two very different things. I knew that cocoa and chocolate have different composition, but had always assumed that when ordering in a restaurant, the terms were interchangeable. Not so at the Yellow Submarine Pizza joint next to the Salvation Army where we go to church services on Sunday evening. We had a pizza that was quite good and stared at an ad for what I assumed was hot chocolate the whole time we were eating it. I asked the server, who spoke quite good English, if it was hot chocolate. She said it was not but they did have hot chocolate with nuts. We signed right on and in a few minutes she came back with two tiny cups with tiny saucers and tiny spoons. They were filled with hot, melted real chocolate, thicker than Hershey's syrup, with not one drop of milk in it and full of whole filberts or hazel nuts. Excuse me while I drool, just thinking about it. I about melted into a little puddle and bubbled. Thank goodness there was no whipped cream involved, or I surely would have. Feeling pretty sure that sticking my tongue into the empty cup would not leave a good impression, I settled for cleaning it as well as I could with the tiny little spoon.
The server asked us where we were from and if we were on vacation. We explained, and it turns out she is a student at the University. She wasn't very busy, so we had time to chat. She has visited Pensacola and wants to go back again. She loves the weather there. The Lithuanian people have a reputation for being reserved, but they certainly have seemed quite open to us.
The young woman who played the keyboard at church was a student at LCC, the other university, who is from Moldava. I had to look it up, or actually, Del did it for me. Her English was virtually unaccented. She had spent some time in Lawrenceville, Ga. and Williamsburg, Va. in association with a church group for whom she had translated when they had a mission group in her country.
It was a bright, sunny day today. Del took some pictures, and I will try to get them uploaded to Facebook and this blog. Keep fingers crossed. We had a successful Skype event with Daryl Lynn and Tommy (Del's sister). At first we had an audio problem, but they cleverly held up notes to ask and answer. Those school teachers, they can always come up with a back up plan. All those years of working with ancient equipment, I suppose.
Those of you who know me even a little bit, know that my reading over the years has consisted primarily of mysteries, and stuff for work. Now that I have EHJ, I have broadened my tastes to include books of other categories that I can download for free, but still, we aren't talking actual literature, for the most part. Occasionally, however, even in the stuff I read I come across an idea or phrase that is quite meaningful to me. Today, in a free mystery, the main character spoke of something as a "rocking chair moment." She went on to explain that those are moments you will want to remember when you are ninety years old rocking away. I got to thinking about what I would think of as rocking chair moments and was surprised at how simple so many of them are. What about you? Had you ever heard that phrase? Are you enjoying remembering some moments of your own?
Another helpful thing I learned from a mystery some years ago was that if you want to remember to take something to a potluck, put your keys in the fridge. It hasn't hurt my keys so far, but I can't promise it won't.
Only one short blast of fireworks last night, probably too cold and wet.
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