California Style

“Would you like some tea?”

“Excuse me?”

“Tea? I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Sure, unless you have something stronger. Heh. Heh.” Where the hell is the chardonnay?!

There is a universal ritual among mothers of school-age children. When you stop by another family’s home to pick up your kid from a play date, you are either invited in or handed your child at the door. Rather than saying, “Would you like to stay and talk?” they will ask if you’d like a drink. This may or may not have anything to do with how charming and fabulous you are, it is more likely a matter of time. We are ruled by work deadlines, homework schedules, music lessons and sports practice.

In La Jolla, the minute you ring the bell, there is no mystery to sort out.

“Lisa! Get in here right this second and let me open a bottle! How are you, woman?”

Several glasses of wine later, you are lucky to get out the door with your children in tow to make it home and put dinner together before your husband arrives. Socializing is at a premium in California.

I haven’t figured out if the ladies in Ithaca are on a health kick or what, but clearly no one is opening a bottle of wine at 5:00 on a weeknight. They are gracious and friendly but not inclined to drink and gossip and say lewd things about the P.E. coach.

My best bet has been to nod appreciatively at the offer of tea and get to know my new hosts. Once in a while, though, I stumble across a fellow bon vivant; and, as one of my upstate friends likes to say, we hang out “California Style.”