various adventures - part n, out of sequence

Now in London, with the ancestry: the octagenarians, as they like to be called. Today I interviewed MamaSue on medicine and art, though we've really only just got to the art part. We journeyed, over beer and shrimp, through France and Belgium in the 20's and 30's, then Rwanda in the 30's and 40's, South Africa through the second world war (her father wept - the first battle in which he'd spent 4 years in the trenches was meant to have ended all wars). She talked about studying medicine in a language she'd never spoken before. I heard about the petty tirades of sexist administrators and the mysoginist ministrations of senior doc's in the neurosurgical O.R. Why is there so little time for stories? I'm hungry for stories, but she worries that I'll be bored - she is so certain that she should be winding down (her body tells her so, it's true), but then, she comes from a long line of mid-90-survivors...

Our clan has bathed in wine, cognac, beer, champagne, belgian red bubbly, g&t's, and more wine. We have marched our delighted tongues through mounds of St. Andre, brie, camenbert, roquefort, chevre et plus. Chocolate and tea and strong black coffee and espresso have kept us from naps when our eyes would have been heavy. These hot days have been nothing less than a celebration of extravagent consumption. Yet it is all simply a ritual, to keep us face to face, in conversation among us 4 or in the fine company of friends. These are the days my jiggling bottom will never forget!