better shared



***This post dedicated to Mary & Jason: Commence the "Like" race! Thanks for sharing many, many good things with me.



<3 is everywhere



Good things are better shared.

For that matter, almost everything is better shared, if you ask me. Bad things become easier to bear with the relief of shedding their secrecy and working through them with someone else. Good things become even better, more beautiful, and longer lasting as their memory outlives the actual flavor, aroma, vision, experience.

My mainstay Mary Lynn just texted me that she got back safely to Alexandria, where she now lives, after a weekend of sharing things with each other.

I love hosting friends. I told her as we set out yesterday morning, "I'm excited to share my life here with you, because I've worked really hard to make it good." She replied, "That's very apparent." And as we sat on the jungly patio of the Blue Parrot at brunch this morning, she marveled at how thoroughly and well I have adopted Delaware as my home and made it meaningful.

She also said about a billion times over the last 40 hours, "I love Delaware."

I couldn't hope for anything more.

Yesterday I drove my sisters (Asha and Yana) to their friend Kat's house, their HQ for the Homecoming Dance. Asha had a date. Weird. I haven't seen pictures yet, but I'm sure they looked beautiful, because every day I'm amazed at how old and gorgeous they are.

I like sharing people with each other most of all. I like sharing my family with my friends, and my friends with my family. I like sharing Jason with everybody and everybody with him. (...But not in a creepy, let's-all-date-each-other kind of a way.) I love throwing parties because I love sitting back and seeing people I care about interact with each other. It's really just the best.





Case in point.





Mary and Jason got along ridiculously well. Walking around Old New Castle with the two of them all day yesterday was strange because every time we walked past something cute (a baby, or an animal) they both did a major double take and exclaimed in stereo, "Kitty!" or "Awww!" There were a lot of babies and puppies and kitties out yesterday.

There's a guy who sets up tables outside the old courthouse and fills them with produce from his farm down near Middletown. I didn't catch his name, but it starts with a T... Every time I see him I'm reminded of the crew from Tiny Planet Farm in St. Croix Falls last summer. He is a regular fixture on that corner, and the lady who walked past with her little curly-haired dog knew him by name. He was telling us how he rescued the last bushel of wax beans, but lost most of them to Friday night's frost, as the dogwalker leaned against the leash to keep her dog from laying waste to the vegetables.

"He loves a good salad!" she said, dragging him off. "I'll be back later to see what you've got left." As she stepped off the curb, though, the little dog made one last leap at the radishes laid out in a crate on the ground and snagged three of them in his teeth.

The five of us parted ways, laughing. Jason and Mary and I set off to Jessop's Tavern for dinner and meant to come back before 7 to get some veggies, but sadly we missed him.

Jessop's is a colonial-style tavern with ship models in the windows, crooked wooden floors, heavy wood tables and heavy silver dishes. The staff dress in full colonial garb and the room is crowded and dimly lit. The host set our table with a stack of literature about the extensive beer list. Needless to say, we were all pretty excited about it.

And we were completely satisfied. I got the shepherd's pie, which will feed me all week. At least 2 more times, and even 3 wouldn't be too much of a stretch. Plus it was delicious, and the beers were HUGE, in tankards and two-pint bottles.

After dinner we ran over to the Amstel House for Hauntings & History, New Castle's ghost tour. It's only $10 per person and tours start at 7:00, 7:30, and 8:30 on Friday and Saturday nights until the end of October. The hauntings were not the scariest I've heard (French Quarter trumps all, so far), but I love history, especially local history, and the group was an engaged one. We learned that libraries used to be membership-only, even until the 1930s; and also that Betsy Ross's father-in-law was the first reverend of New Castle's Anglican Church, shipped over from England. Bonus trivia: The first "graveyard shifts" were worked by gravediggers and cemetery maintenance workers paid extra to wait by fresh graves overnight, listening for the bell attached to recently deceased fingers in case of accidental burial. Creepy. Worth $10? I say yea.

Between registering for the tour and go-time, though, we had 20 minutes to kill. So we walked back up the street to Nora Lee's French Quarter Bistro for a quick round of beers. That place is really pretty convincing: full of dark, rich colors and macabre skeletons dancing from ceiling beams. Everything in the old town is dark polished wood and lovely.

big boy, little espresso

Our original plan was to leave New Castle early and head back to Little Italy for dinner; but after a turn around Battery Park we stopped for coffee at the Penn's Place cafe, Traders' Cove. Their back patio is beautiful, with mosaic tabletops supported by cast iron detail. They support local artisans, some of whom do tarot card readings in these October evenings, related to the ghost tours. They also make delicious mini espresso brownies (mini for a good reason), delicious recommendations to add cinammon to a soy latte for best results, and delicious beer recommendations (a Yards Thomas Jefferson Ale that turned out to have an 8% alcohol content, but was rich and hearty and fruity with just a hint of hops--perfect!).

Anyway, it was the coffee shop crew who told us about the ghost tours, and we decided to stick around town, get some food and drinks and wait for the sun to go down.

It's nice being able sometimes to just let things happen.

I think part of what makes this possible is being where you want to be. I mean this figuratively: If your feet are solidly grounded, if your eyes are set on the prize, if your arms are linked with other strong, lovely arms, you have a beautiful freedom to recognize possibilities.

If our perfect trio yesterday held on stubbornly to our schedule rather than to our company, we would have missed out on some priceless experiences. I suppose we would have done something else wonderful instead--but therein lies the beauty of it. Experiences are better shared because they are shared no matter the experience. More sensically: It doesn't matter what we do because we are doing it together.

Here's the rub, though. Those linked arms are possible because I put so much energy into discovering the hidden joys of my new home. I was the most versed person in local history on our ghost tour because I have loved drinking up the rich past of this place. I have drunk it because it's rich, and it's rich because I've drunk it.

And every person, or every group of people I share it with, it becomes richer and more delicious.

Bring on the feast, world. My people and I are ready to eat, drink and be merry.