A visit from Norway

I’ve yet again been privileged to add an internet friend to my list of face-to-face friends. These are artificial categories at best; if I’ve learned nothing else these past three years or so, I have learned that friendship has absolutely nothing to do with physical proximity. But it’s always nice to see the face and hear the voice of someone you’ve gotten to know through words on a monitor screen.

I took yesterday off to spend with her, and we visited a large arboretum located about an hour from where I live. I was surprised, since I thought she’d want to see the historic sites or museums in Philadelphia, but she’d just come from Chicago and really didn’t want to do any more city-seeing. Can’t say I blamed her. So we spent the day chasing butterflies, taking pictures, and talking about mutual friends from the web. As always, I’m humbled by the people I’m lucky enough to call friends. Her command of English was wonderful, her wit was sharp, and I was especially impressed with her confidence in travelling solo so far from home. At her age I’d never have had the courage to travel Europe alone, yet she was travelling the US by train and bus without a second thought. Besides she liked our cats (and more importantly, the cats all liked her). That’s about the biggest recommendation a person can come with, in my book.

She brought some cloudberry brandy as a gift, which The Professor sampled and actually liked (he seldom likes anything with alcohol in it). She also brought some licorice (pepper candy) liquor that is used for making a drink called a “black rider”. I dislike licorice, but made a deal with her that I’d do a black rider if she’d eat a Pop Tart (a running joke between us – Europeans cannot believe we’d put anything like a Pop Tart even remotely close to our mouths). She took a bite of a Pop Tart, anyhow. I suppose it would have been considered cruelty to enforce any larger portion.