Visitors from overseas don't get much better than this. Enthusiastic, positive, adventurous, accommodating. Happy. Honestly, looking back on the weekend, I have nothing but warm thoughts throughout. My Polish guests made this into a beautiful set of days.
They're leaving this morning -- onto their more rural set of adventures. (Their first days in the US were spent in cities: first New York, then Chicago. And as architects, I can tell you that they were significantly more impressed with Chicago. At least if you pair up Manhattan and Chicago, there's no question but that on a livability scale, to say nothing of architectural integrity, the Windy City comes out ahead.) And so we have our last meal together. (And here, they sweetly tell me that all their best meals and most definitely the corn that they ate at the farmhouse were best here, in Madison. Yay Madison!)
But first, I clean the farmette flower fields. As usual.
(ahhhh... the last of the lily queens)
(Bold Beatrice... Or, one of the other three Bresse hens. Who can tell...)
It seems fitting to take them all to Sardine for brunch. That Madison restaurant has been our family favorite for years and years and it has so much going for it! The location, in an old brewery building by the lake...
... is lovely. (I asked for a window table and they sweetly obliged.) The food is well thought out, with something for every palate, all fresh and honest.
As we eat and talk about the future (because in the last minutes of a visit, you always let go of the past and turn toward the future), I think how decisions you make always have unexpected consequences and more often than not, mine have been hugely fortuitous. If I hadn't gambled on that old apartment in Warsaw, I would have never met these people. And here I am now, with friends for life. And with a window toward a new generation of Poles (they are way younger than my other Polish friends).
(French fry dipped in maple syrup? Mmm, good!)
And so they depart. Only a wicker basket from Poland with a bunch of books for the kids remains.
Happy travels to this wonderful foursome!
And now I turn back to farmette life.
For a very short while (I'm leaving soon). But definitely for this Sunday: there is a walk with Ed in our local park prairie...
And there is dinner, here, with the young family.
A calm moment before things get hectic again. In a good way. Oh, the beauty of a very full summer!
With love...
