Mea Culpa, Dude

It will soon be time to reveal my annual New Year's Motto. At the end of each year, I try to spend some focused time examining the detritus of the past 12 months, contemplating what I've learned, forgiving myself for what I didn't learn, and deciding how I'll use the experiences to move forward more authentically into the next year.

But mostly, I just try to find words that rhyme with the number of the new year. For example, THIS year's motto was "I Embrace My Fate in 2008." Last year's motto was, "My Life Will Leaven in 2007." (That was a real dud...and my life managed to reflect just how clunky it was.)

Before I do that, I have a major piece of business to clear up. It occurred to me Sunday night, when I was having some monstrously delicious Ethiopian food with my Kakamega buddy Bryan. He was in Nairobi with his mother and sister, who came to visit from Florida, and one of his Peace Corps buddies. Bryan and his folks were on their way to spend New Year's Eve in Mombasa, and he invited me to join them at Habesha restaurant.

I've passed this place lots of times, but had never eaten there. Ethiopian food is best experienced with a large group, because they bring you out this big honkin' tray of delectable delicacies ladled onto spongy flatbread called injera, and then you just scoop up clumps of it as you go along. If you overthink this rather messy, intimate process, it could really make you gag, so you definitely want to have the experience with people you trust.

During dinner, I mentioned to Brian's mother that he's a great cook, and had made some of the best pizza I've ever wrapped my lips around while I was in Kakamega. I briefly acknowledged it in a blogpost at the time...the dessert pizza with bananas and crushed Cadbury chocolate bars was absolutely to die for! Bryan and his So Cal buddy Ian, and their German Entomologist buddy George, worked like trojans that night preparing pizza so good, I must have had 8 pieces.

Bryan even sent me pictures of them holding their culinary masterpiece, that insanely delicious "Gerschmakt" dessert pizza, and I promised to give them a big shout out on the blog. But when I wrote about my trip to Kakamega, my main themes were the forced death march up the Nandi Hills, and almost getting my throat cut in a seedy bar. To top it off, I recalled Bryan and George hotfooting it out of said bar without a backwards glance to confirm whether I was safe.

Now, Bryan remembers that bar episode differently, but that's not the point. Here's the point--when he described telling Ian that their masterpiece pizza would be featured on the blog, my heart sank. And then Bryan reminded me of my snarky focus on how "dangerous" it can be to hang out with men in their
20's.

When I went back and read the post, I had to cringe. In my relentless pursuit of creative license, I'd described Ian and Bryan as the human equivalent of a basket of puppies. I mean, could I possibly have managed to be more patronizing than that???? See, the thing is, as a veteran, hard-core smart-ass, I'm able to separate my actual feelings about people from what I may wind up writing about them, because my actual feelings sometimes aren't hilarious enough. It's totally nothing personal.

But for some reason, I can't stop thinking about what Bryan said Sunday night. "Damn my agile, whipsaw wit! Curse these nimble fingers for typing sly cyber-satire, anyway!" Seriously, Bryan and Ian and George are great guys and fabulous pizza chefs, and as long as they're willing to hang out with a hungry old broad like me, I'm down for whatever.

So here's a picture of three young hotties in Kakamega, the hosts of one of the best dinners I've had since I got to Kenya. Oh, and Bryan...next time you're in Nairobi, dinner at the Italian restaurant named after the city in Mexico is on moi.