“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
~Haruki Murakami,
Finally, the spare room is finished! To celebrate it actually being livable, and the last reminder of that god awful move behind us, we decorated it for Christmas, and went to Ghiradelli in Lathrop for some chocolate, a bottle of sea salt caramel topping and bag of peppermint baking chips. I wish I had been at Ghiradelli in San Francisco, because as I remember, they had a lot more choices of products, like my hubby's favorite, chocolate covered coffee beans, and the chunks of chocolate in a barrel, and it's San Francisco! My dad used to buy me the big chunks of chocolate whenever he visited the city. I was thinking about him the other day, he loved to grab a sundae there. All it took was a big Hot Fudge Sundae to put a smile on his face. Ghiradelli's chocolate is very distinctive. The Hot Fudge is amazing but our favorite sundae was the Hot Peanut Butter. They don't have it anymore... darn it!
Funny, it isn't even my memory, and yet I can see him sitting at one of their little tables enjoying the view, and devouring that delicious sundae. That was dad. Gosh, I sure am missing him right now. I think he would have enjoyed the Sugar Cooking chocolate squares I bought this year. Oh my... anyway, as chocolate goes, I enjoy it but by no means am I a chocolate fiend or anything, but there are definitely some memories around it. Like the memory of my sister always having a BIG box of See's candy on the table for Christmas eve. I did love so the Milk Bordeaux, and I don't know if I ever told her how awesome it was that she did that. Smooth, sweet the candy melted in your mouth. I haven't had one of those in ages. She and I were never close, and after a certain point we never spoke again, but she is gone now too, and I am thinking about her this Christmas too. Oh boy... sigh... I think I see another post about chocolate, and family dynamics, coming!
Lathrop sure isn't San Francisco.
