Left the house yesterday morning to meet my sister for coffee. 

There are few more lovely reasons to leave the house on a Saturday morning. 

Figured I’d swing by the post office first to pick up some stamps.

Planned to write my daughter her weekly postcard after having coffee with my big sister. 

No line when I got inside. 

Saw Maria standing behind the counter … which made me smile. 

Maria’s worked at the post office for 28 years, if I remember correctly. 

She told me last time I picked up a lasagna from her. 

Not at the post office.

At her tender restaurant A la Maria’s, on LeMoyne, where she spends her weekday evenings … lovingly making her Mom’s old Italian recipes.

Maria’s place holds a special place in my heart. 

When Karry and I got married and moved into the World’s Tiniest Apartment in East Washington, Maria’s mother ran a restaurant out of the basement of her home a couple blocks from us. 

In our early Kraft-Mac-and-Cheese-Can-of-Peas-for-Dinner days, Paesano’s was our one monthly splurge. 

Saturday night.

If the weather was nice we’d walk. 

It was BYOB so we made a ritual of picking up a $10 bottle of wine.

Made sure we were in our seats by 7 o’clock, so we could watch X-Files re-runs on the big TV that hung in the dining area …

… while slow savoring food made with love from an Italian mother’s kitchen.  

We’d take our time walking our full bellies back home — the next day’s leftover lunch in my left hand, Karry’s hand in my right. 

Everything my Saturday night could ever want back then. 

Maria’s lasagna is perfection. 

Architectural is the best way to describe it. 

Sharp corners. Rectilinear. Towering. 

Don’t know how she does it.

Every lasagna we’ve ever made at home comes out of the pan (deliciously) gloopy.

Maria’s could serve as a tornado shelter. 

Comes with about a 1/2 inch of standing red sauce pooling in the bottom of the to go container. 

Every time I get home and crack open the styrofoam box, Pavarotti sings ‘La donna è mobile’ in my head.

Comes with two thin slices of Italian bread, essential sponges for sopping up every last drop from the plate when you’ve sadly run out of lasagna.

When I put my sopped-clean-post-lasagna plate in the dish washer, the other dishes are like, “I think you meant to put this back in the cabinet.” 

So it should come as no surprise how it made me smile to see Maria behind the counter at the post office yesterday morning.

“Miss Maria,” I greeted.

“Mr. Riddell.”

“Postcard stamps?” I asked. 

“Cleaned out. Election folks bought ‘em all up.”

“Awwww. Really?”

Asked her when they might get more in. She said they’re on order, from Kansas.

“They send them regular mail … so, who knows?”

Coming from a post office person, the “Who knows?” struck me as funny. 

She said I could try the McMurray store. They have everything there. 

I thanked her for letting me know, and exhaled defeatedly, as I didn’t have the time nor inclination for a special trip. 

Was just about to say out loud that my visit wasn’t in vain, though, since I got to see her …  

… when Maria interjected. 

“Otherwise, you’d have to go two busses and some grapes.”

“Uh …. I’m sorry, what?”

“To make up the 61 cents,” she said.

Pre-caffeinated, I wasn’t following at all. 

She pulls out her drawer, takes out a couple packs of stamps. 

Starts to do math. 

Explains the busses are 28 cents … 

“So two of those …. plus a five cent stamp,” she says, holding up a pack of grape stamps. 

“So you’d need a lot of stamps,” she chuckled.

“Wait …,” I said. “Postcard stamps are 61 cents?”

“Yep. Regular stamps are 78 cents, post cards are 61.”

I had no idea. 

In my mind I thought postcard stamps were like 19 cents.

Sixty-one cents …  for such little real estate.  

I felt dumb … for having hundreds of post cards at home. 

She started to put the booklets back in her drawer, when I interjected. 

“I’ll take the busses and grapes,” I said. 

“Oh, you want to do that?” she asked.

“Just to get me through today,” I said. 

What I meant was that I’d just take a booklet of each as an interim solution. 

“Oh, so you just want enough for one?” she asked.  

I didn’t think you could do that.

I smiled at the smile on her face as I watched her tearing off a postcard’s worth of individual stamps from their booklets. 

“I guess I’m going to have to write smaller,” I said out loud. 

She broke apart the three I needed, laid them loose on the counter. 

Then an idea popped into her head.

“Here’s what you do ….” 

I watched her pick up a bus, peel it off, and carefully lay it across the other bus. 

Wasn’t sure what she was doing … maybe just consolidating onto one piece rather than sending me out with three loose stamps? 

Then she peeled the grape and surgically laid it across the second bus. 

“There …. That’s what you do,” she said. 

Proudly. 

“Leaves you more room to write,” she said. 

Oh. 

“So you can lay them across each other like that on the post card?” I asked. 

“Yep,” she said. “Only the ‘USA’ needs to be showing.” 

And I giggled out loud …  like a five-year-old who’d just seen an adult perform magic.

You should see what she does with a lasagna, I’m tellin’ ya. 

In the town where I live, there’s a person who will not only let a clueless, pre-caffeinated little brother cobble together a postcard’s worth of stamps … but will take the time to bunch ‘em as tight as the law allows … so he has as much room as possible to write to his daughter about how much he misses her.

__

And after just the loveliest visit with my big sister …

… I took out my favorite pen …

… and the postcard I’d plucked special from my massive, impractical inventory …

… took my time writing small and neat …

… doing my best to make every word count …

… with all the reverence I could muster …

… as I imagined a mother might …

… writing down her favorite recipes for posterity.

Everything my Saturday morning could ever want.