Lady Godiva

When Sonia and I were in our early teens we'd sometimes be invited along with Mom to her bosses' house for an evening of dinner and stories. Jeanette and Sam were wonderful hosts, their children were already adults and their small appartment was filled with the exotic fragrances of an unfamillar culture. Sam's thick accent sounded to us like he was raised in Brooklyn, not his native Ukraine. Sam drove a purple Lincoln that he called Abe that he may or may not have won in a poker game. Mom's boss from the Probation Department- Jeanette served us borscht and stew meat with sour cream and souerkraut, and always Godiva chocolates from a gigantic gold foil box. I remember being invited to take only one and how challenging it was to survey the treasure trove of tempting chocolates- trying to imagine which shapes held which flavorful reward, and select the one to commit my taste buds to.

Mom saved some kind of treasures in one of those gold foil boxes, maybe Sonia will remember what it was, maybe pictures- maybe buttons. I can't recall. I'm distracted right now for lots of reasons but mostly I'm resisting making the box-of-chocolates-to-life analogy, not just because it's cliche- which it is. But mostly because it's too simple. We get the chocolates- all of them, and when we're done eating them at whatever pace we happen to be aware of in retrospect, we get the box too. And if we're lucky we can enjoy the use of the box just as much as when we ate- or gave-away the candy.

I'm also not remembering how long Mom had collected elephant paraphernalia- Sonia may also recall this fact as well. Today Nancy and I went to lunch at a neighborhood Thai restaurant and this carving greeted us at the entrance. I like how the trunks meet to form a heart shape.