Monday May 8, 2006 - You’ll Join Me for Coffee

The loyal blog readers may remember that a couple weeks back I borrowed my 80ish old neighbor’s “steps” for my pigeon eradication project. In the very manana time of Cyprus, whenever I passed him downstairs “tomorrow” always seemed to be when he wanted it back. A few days ago was finally the day we set up for the ladder drop off – not that it was in our way or anything. I clanked the ladder down the hall and he greeted me with asking “you’ll join me for coffee?” I visited for a while as he proudly showed me all the stations he got on his satellite TV. After peppering him with questions, I learned his interesting truncated life story: born in Egypt and moved to Cyprus when he was 20, worked as a mechanic, widowed 16 years ago, with three kids, and two grandkids. After learning he was an avid fisherman (every morning), I was invited to join him anytime. He beckoned me to skuffle with him down the hall as he presented a closet spewing fishing equipment…no need for me to buy a pole.

Fast forward a day…and knowing my place barefoot in the kitchen, I made a hefty double batch of banana coconut chocolate chip bread. Two loaves went with "C" to work, one went to the mosaic/pottery studio, a chunk went to our old Egyptian neighbor, and we plowed through the rest of it. A day after the bread delivery, there was a knock on the door and Mr. Egypt returned the plate which he had filled with french fries and his catches of the day. There were these little fishies no longer than your index finger that he had fried up. He let me know that they were freshly caught and cooked (fried) and to eat them now. So I gingerly chomped down on half of one (brains, eyeballs, bones and all) with a big smile exclaiming how good they were and happily munched away until he turned to return to his apartment and I could spit the fishmeal out into the trashcan. It really was adorably cute that he brought over the little fish and fries snack for us…I guess it would be a little too much to ask for him to filet the little guys with tweezers and a razor for us next time :^) Pooky (cat at the mosaic studio) was my new best friend today as I presented her with a ziplock bag full of fishies.