A Few Things I Love About My Life, Even Just Right Now, and I’m in O.C., No Less

The way the guy here in Kaffa, my favorite coffee place, adorns my café latté with an artful leaf motif done in white foam.

That I just called my friend Bob via cell phone and he said, “Oh, can I call you back? I’m on my horse trying to gather these cattle from the lower end of the ranch.”The amazing phenomenon of fast, free, wireless internet access right here where I happen to be.

And emails from friends, especially the ones who make me laugh.

The fact that Hotel California is playing, a song I used to listen to while driving the roads of upstate New York, never dreaming that one day I would actually live here, and knowing that I do. That even here on this ugly strip of southern California commercial development, palm trees are simply ordinary and the sunlight through the windows is turning the walls to gold.

How some people glide back and forth so effortlessly between English and Spanish.

The book in my bag: Out Stealing Horses.

That when I have a terrible pang of missing my daughter I can remember that she wouldn’t want to be hanging out with me here anyway.

Does yesterday count? Then the kindness and patience of the manicurist who did my mother’s nails and treated her as though she were an elegant aristocrat instead of a crazy old lady.

The way Rossana, who lives in the same assisted living facility as my mother, sang snippets of old Italian songs to me when I stopped by to say hello, and the tiny photograph she showed me of the beautiful dark-haired woman that was herself at 21.

The fact that as soon as I leave here I am going to think of hundreds more things to love.