Winning the Lottery - The Pleasure of Elegance

Ever wonder what it would be like to have really clear Focus on 'right now'; what it would be like to 'win the lottery and keep it a secret'?

Here are my feelings and thoughts when I felt that I had 'won the lottery' by preparing the American Express proposal, posted earlier on this blogsite, called "I Have a Dream – The Audacity of a Universal Purpose in Life!"

The Pleasure of Elegance

I called my favorite restaurant, Café Provence, a little French restaurant in a small comfortable shopping center in Prairie Village, KS. What a name, right? A Prairie…a village in a prairie. The image one gets from the name is not so good. But the reality is much better. There are big oaks along the streets. The little and old houses are WAY too inexpensive for this beautiful area and location in one of the finest cities in the world!! One day Nanette and I might buy one, tear it down and build her dream home right there. It would start a trend and all the housing values would soar! We need to buy several of them before we build. The value of the others would pay for the new one!!

I was only able to get a reservation for 6:15 pm which was a little early for me. But I knew I wanted to go and I was looking forward to a nice glass of wine and a Kir Royale, my favorite French drink consisting of Champagne with Crème de Cassis. It’s delicious!! You’ve got to try it!

I think as I drove to the restaurant that the name ‘The Audacity of Hope’ seems to fit my book and my project proposal perfectly. I’ll bet Barrack Obama would love this idea! Does anyone know how we could submit it to him and see what he thinks? It would be a win-win!! ‘The Audacity of a Universal Purpose in Life!!’ That’s a winner!! I’m going to use it!!

It is early summer so the day is still full of light and I am one of the first people at the restaurant. Some people are sitting out at little tables with white tablecloths on the sidewalk in front of the place. It is comfortable, the temperature is perfect; people are leisurely drinking a nice glass of wine or reading a book or having a pleasant conversation.

I was ready to say I wanted to eat out there, but when I walked in and the soft music was echoing in the background and gruff little Danielle with her strong French Accent came to assist me to my table I knew I belonged inside.

A new young waiter asked me if the seat that Danielle had chosen for me was OK. I had to stop and think because it wasn’t. I wasn’t for sure why it wasn’t but I could tell it wasn’t the best seat in the place. I carefully evaluated them all and decided upon a small table at the front window. That one was reserved but ‘Jacques’ chose another very close that actually turned out to be even much better!! Danielle reported in her stern little voice with that haughty little attitude that since I had chosen that seat, JoAnn would be my waitress. She pronounced ‘JoAnn’ in such a way that I couldn’t tell for sure the name and I had to ask when my waitress arrived.

I sat and relaxed. I had just showered and had on my best new shirt and pants and felt really good. I was comfortable that I looked good because my new friend ‘Dr.’ Chen, at Dillard’s had assisted me to choose them. ‘Dr.’ Chen had given me his ‘Ph.D.’ explanation of all the collar styles and colors that look best on my complexion and what to wear whenever I am in different types of company, etc. He has an extremely heavy oriental accent but he is without doubt a ‘Ph.D.’ in clothes! Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated Ph.D. for the Latin Philosophiæ Doctor, meaning "teacher of philosophy," I just recently found him and I am so happy to have someone like him assisting me and on my Team!! I’ve needed Dr. Chen all my life!!

I looked around. The place was less than half full, the soft, beautiful music was rather ‘wispy’ like I would suspect would be in a restaurant in the really ‘French’ part of Paris or another nice city in France. The young waiter and JoAnn and Danielle all display the service and manners befitting the elegance of the French names in the menu and the quiet elegance of the small French restaurant.

The young woman preparing drinks behind the bar had a very attractive face, ie., she was rather like ‘Eye Candy’ and that added to the pleasure of my table and my view. The couple at the next table, I later found out, are in town to go to the opera. They come up from a KS city eight times per year since they have tickets for half of the season. They love the Opera. They commented about the pleasure of a nice French restaurant and I agreed and we drank a toast to that and had a pleasant little discourse. I have noticed and I love it, that when I feel like this, when I am so happy and so content within myself, that I do attract a lot of people who just enjoy talking. And so do I!!

JoAnn described the appetizer special of the day; 3 small pieces of toast each topped with a different piece of smoked seafood, one with a shrimp, one with sliced salmon and the other with a scallop. Each one is 'sitting on a small bed of saffron potatoes and drizzled with' a sauce of something I didn’t catch. I had to try that!! I ordered a glass of a wine that I had not tried before, Louis Latour Valmoissine Pinot Noir.

I sat back and listened to the music, I noticed the rather inexpensive looking pictures high on the wall on the East side of the restaurant. They were of young French women in very fashionable dresses in those ‘model’ poses with the attitudes of the ‘upper crust’. But this time I saw them in a different light than I had before. This time I saw that this part of life is not about sexuality or make believe, it is about the pleasure of elegance!! There is nothing really expensive in this place!! It is simply an attitude and an appreciation of a different and wonderful side of life that I had sensed and liked before but never really understood!

The sounds begin to meld together as the crowd grows in size and the music seems to change to a more mixed up sound that matches perfectly with the sounds from the crowd. Craig and Joyce French (we commented on the interesting name) and I introduce ourselves and discuss our jobs. Craig was injured a few years ago and had to retire. He is now an Author of Neo something type literature and has an agent in Sweden that is preparing to publish his first book!! I am an Author out celebrating the proposal that I am about to submit to the American Express Members Projects challenge. Craig and Joyce can’t wait to see it! I give them my new card – Jerry W. Willis – Author – member Bay Head Speakers Guild – www.jerrywwillis.com . We exchange email addresses. He will send me some of his writing and I will send him my proposal – I Have a Dream! But I Need Your Help! Now maybe that should be ‘I Have a Dream – The Audacity of a Universal Purpose in Life!’

JoAnn wants to know if I am ready to order my main course because I am so slowly eating my appetizer. But no, I am savoring this like never before. I am testing and tasting my wine and my appetizer – I swirl the wine in the large glass and smell it before almost each taste – as if I had a sense of smell and could really appreciate the exciting variety of smells that swirling the wine brings out, 'the hints of fruits like apple and pear', etc! So much fun in even the description!!

It feels like the wine tastes better because I smell it before I take a drink! Yes, there is more to even taking a small taste of wine than most people, like me, ever learned early in life!!

I finish the appetizer and the wine. It is good but I have tasted better. But it isn’t about the taste, not this time, it is about the event, the situation, the everything!! I order my favorite, a Kir Royale - Champagne with Crème de Cassis (a black currant flavored liqueur). They are delicious!! You can get the much cheaper black currant Flavored product and the Kir Royale tastes just fine. But the really good stuff is the Black Currant Liqueur in the bottle that looks like it was made for Royalty!! Thank you Pam (the love in my Son and Grandson’s lives – and now mine!) who introduced me to this 'higher level'!!

The Kir Royale comes with a small piece of lemon rind obviously twisted ever so slightly just to get the last little bit of lemon juice from the very little fruit left on the rim of the rind. Those French…they know how to find and use the most delicate bits of flavor in so many of their drinks and dishes!!

At the table in front of me is a nice, rich Grandmother and Grandfather entertaining their Granddaughter who is enjoying the interest from and the ‘quaintness’ of her Grandparents, her 'Ancestors'!

In the background through the open door to the kitchen the flames are jumping and creating a warm glow in the light. Before the chef covers them to prepare the next dish, he gently removes small portions of the current menu item from his skillet and places them ever so carefully in such a way as to have a ‘creation’ on the dish. For that is part of the beauty of the elegance, the pleasure for him and for all of his ‘Guests’ – those that understand and appreciate what this is all about. Funny, I never saw it all before. I never understood it so well before. It really is a thing of beauty and pleasure!

Danielle, with her normal diligence, is busily clearing the table after one set of customers leave, apparently oblivious, although I doubt it, to the beauty that she and the environment are creating. JoAnn announces to me that my dinner of Sea Bass with saffron sauce, with a curry sauce and a bueurre blanc (white butter sauce), should be ready in just minutes. She calls me ‘Monsieur’ and I call her ‘Madame’ and say ‘Merci’ and try to remember some of the French words I learned last year. Not to impress her but to feel good about myself that I do know some of this beautiful ‘Language of Love’. I must remember to look up some of the words before I come next time!! It is so nice to know and use them! It adds to the pleasure.

The ‘Eye Candy’ Barmaid smiles as she interacts with the male waiter and learns how to enter the items in the computer which is neatly hidden behind a column. She must be new. The Kir Royale and the wine have brightened and lightened my view of the world and what I am experiencing. The world is beautiful!! Life is GOOD!!

I want more to drink but I know that I am at the ‘top of the mountain’ and it is now time to begin coming down the other side. My entrée arrives. It has ‘baby carrots’ in the white cream sauce, the buerre blanc, surrounded by the light green saffron sauce. The large chunk of Sea Bass sits atop a 'finger of' deep fat fried 'potato jutting out into the mustard sauce'. There are no salt and pepper shakers on the tables – things are presented the way they ‘should be’, the way the chef has carefully prepared them!

As the Granddaughter discusses her ‘extreme engineering’ project in China she says it is ‘very cool’. The Sea Bass flakes perfectly into huge chips, the sauces are mild and tantalizing. They could use just a little more salt but…

The male waiter explains to a new guest about the special of Sea Bass with ‘baby carrots’ in saffron sauce. Granddaughter is happily telling about the new Music Festival that she is planning to attend soon.

I’m getting full even before I finish these relatively small portions. But I want to be sure to save room for the wonderful desserts and a ‘French Press’ of café.

You can tell some guests are parents entertaining their children and their spouses. The parents are tan and smiling; happy, obviously comfortable, dressed in very nice looking clothes. The Father in the couple closest to me has on a yellow and black striped knit shirt and the obligatory mustache of the rich and suave. The Mother reminds me of Jane Fonda with large rimmed glasses.

A delightful new couple comes in looking beautiful and they kiss and hug their waiting children before they sit down. This man has on a rather silk looking shirt that looks great!! I’m going to have to get one of those! He has on nice loafers. But the thing that makes each of these parents look so good is that they are trim!! I’ve got to get my eating under control!!

‘Eye Candy’ has perfect teeth. She is a little overweight and not dressed extremely well I see as she comes out from behind the bar. Danielle is describing the ‘Ta Ta Ta’ and the Crepe Suzette and the Chocolate Cake called ‘Gateau Au Chocolat‘ to a couple near me. I can’t wait, but I want to. The anticipation makes it even more fun and good!!

A young couple next to me seems to be trying to decide what to order but when they do the lady comfortably orders ‘the Ceasar Salad and hold the anchovies’ and the ‘Croque Chez Jacques’. She obviously knows a little French and enjoys it too. People are clicking wine glasses in toasts, smiling and smelling the wines before they taste. There is definitely the feel of being in France where the pleasures of good food and wines and service are treasured and exalted!!

Grandmother’s silk blouse is hung up on the back of her chair but she doesn’t know it and granddaughter doesn’t do anything about it if she sees it.

I order a crepe suzette and a French Press Café. Delicious!! Why haven’t I been ordering these more often? –

"Crêpe Suzette is a typical French and Belgian dessert, consisting of a crêpe with a hot sauce of caramelised sugar, orange juice, lightly grated orange peel and liqueur (usually Grand Marnier) on top, which is subsequently lit."

Grandmother’s hair is obviously coiffed – she is sweet and elegant and full of hope and pleasure and pride in her granddaughter. They talk of a ‘multi-year project’ which has a new meaning to me now that I have attained this golden age and Grandmother is obviously quite a bit older. It is almost humorous. Reminds me of the woman saying she doesn’t even buy green bananas anymore.

JoAnn smiles always. She greatly enjoys her guests loving their food and the experience and she knows and can see that I do. She wears large circle earrings; I always like large earrings on a woman. Her hair is cut very short in the back which I normally don’t like. But it doesn’t matter. Her sparkling personality, and obvious love of life, overcomes any deficits in her real physical beauty. She has a small heart discreetly tattooed on the back of her left hand.

This is why we want our family members to get a good education. So they can earn enough money to experience some of these extremely nice moments in life. But, many of them are available even if you don’t have a lot of money. All it takes is effort and setting the right priorities and having a glimpse of what is out there when you have the right understandings!

Granddad is comfortably taking his time looking over the menu while the young waiter waits patiently and comfortably. When he finally decides and orders Grandmother gently makes fun of him and to Granddaughter. They smile at each other with the comfortable attitude that says they have great Love for each other and enjoy each other so much especially in these times.

That is a wonderful feeling!! Nanette and I have it a lot! That is a beautiful part of a relationship that grows and mellows and ages gracefully when you are with the right kind of person in your life.

Grandmother and Granddaughter share some unique family features; the nose, the chin, the smile, the deep set eyes. They laugh and smile with obvious pleasure and happiness with the relationship and the evening.

Excellent!! It’s time to leave. JoAnn and I hug. We shared something beautiful together; my enjoyment of the evening, the food, the atmosphere and her service; and the common understanding! These things may seem superficial but they are not for some of us. This is a new and a better level, one that you want to experience if you can.

As I leave it is still light even though it is almost 9 pm. The temperature is perfect. The sky is clear. The air is clean. The neighborhoods are quiet and peaceful. WOW!!

There are some things in life that you want, like being really ‘Happy’, and sometimes you can’t imagine what it truly is going to feel like when they happen. This is a different realm in an alternate reality. It’s like ‘Number One’ experienced in the ‘Holideck ‘ on my favorite Star Trek show.

I don't know if any of you have experienced what I am experiencing right now but I hope you have and do. The thrill, excitement, hope, joy, satisfaction and peace of mind of all that you could hope for, even better than your dreams, and then some more, all happening in one fell swoop!

Wow! That’s all I can say, is WOW!!


So now I have typed past midnight. The first celebration of June 9, 2007 is now over. It was wonderful! I can’t wait until next year!

Love,

‘Willis’