Blythe Spirit

American Fries

There’s really nothing more American than a country church pot luck supper. I’d forgotten about these kinds of meals, featuring orange Jell-o with carrot shavings, homemade brownies with frosting, grocery store rolls, twelve kinds of mayonnaise-dressed salads, and heaping platters of fried chicken.

The church ladies keep the groaning buffet table stacked with plates and pasta salad with celery, and blocks of margarine.

It’s been a long time since I happened upon food like this. Even before we left for Germany, we spent most summer Sunday afternoons grilling flank steak and marinated asparagus, or sampling Asian pear-apples from the farmers’ market, or something lame and yuppie like that.

But yesterday we were invited to join our friend Aaron and his family for a celebration. Aaron was Jeff’s roommate in college and beyond. They lived together when neither of them could afford a bed so they slept in sleeping bags on the floor of their summer apartment, both doing shift work to earn money for school. They shared a couple of different rental houses after graduation, when Aaron was a first-year science teacher and Jeff was riding the bus to an office downtown.

We’ve all been all over the place since then. We missed Aaron’s wedding in Guatemala a few years ago, so we really wanted to be there for this big day. I am so proud of him, and so hopeful for his wife and three sons. I don’t know anyone kinder or more patient or who appreciates life more than he does.

I spent all afternoon watching Theo chase after a bunch of kids he’d never seen before, but whose parents I’d known since before I knew how to grill asparagus. And I licked the chicken grease off my fingers and remembered that home is about tastes and people and sounds we know well, even if we haven’t visited in a very long time.

Well! That was fun.

I’ve been in the USA for less than 48 hours and your assumptions that I’ve already cranked up the air conditioning, consumed nachos AND a tamale, and tooled around town in not one but two different SUVs are correct. I deserved some hedonism (woo-hoo, I’ve always been such a party animal, look at me wasting gas and downing the trans fats) after being told on Wednesday night by the Lufthansa ticket agent that our flight had been canceled and our best bet would be to drive to Amsterdam(!) and try to get on a plane (any old plane? I guess?) there. At least fifty new grey hairs sprouted from my scalp during the next twelve hours as we huddled once again in the bathroom – but this time at the hotel since Theo was asleep in the main room – with the cell phone and laptop, frantically calling and searching for a way to get the heisse scheisse out of there. And so we did.

And since there’s really nothing more boring than hearing about the long long security lines and the delightful French ticket agent at Charles deGaulle, and the SIX HOURS we spent in the Salt Lake City airport, I’ll just say it’s good to be here, even if I’m befuddled every time a stranger speaks to me which seems to be all the freaking time. Yesterday some guy jay-walked in front of me and then stopped to apologize to me for crossing against the light.

There’s no place like home.