Americans Like Stoicism

As you know, any attempt I make to go from A to B involves multiple encounters with random strangers hellbent on imparting the story of their ankle injury, bunion removal, hammer toe straightening, or Achilles Heel replacement, to me en route, because I wear a surgical boot and therefore I must be not only interested in their health stories but will also be pathetically grateful for any advice they can give me, and of course I both welcome and need their rebuke for the mess I have gotten myself into, even if they have not even asked me what has happened to me. Today en route to physiotherapy: ten strangers accosted me to heap ridicule on my limping, booted state. But on the way through the park to the station where I get my tube train home, a new experience. A group of American tourists, lounging on the path (way too sodden to sit on the grass) enjoying the brief respite from the most prolonged deluge ever to hit British soil in a hundred years of Aprils, stare at me as I approach them. As I get closer, they begin to clap. As I walk past them the applause rises to a crescendo. Go girl, they shout! You are so brave! I stare at them. Seriously, right. This cannot be happening. Random cheering and clapping by strangers only happens in cheesy Hollywood movies featuring Jennifer Aniston, or Debra Winger. Or Tom Hanks. Or maybe Will Smith. But never in the life of Melinda Simmons. It is weird and offensive and totally uncalled for, and it is also sweet and spontaneous and really rather flattering. I would have walked on with a spring in my step but I already have one. It is built into the boot. Tonight is exciting because it is Leftovers Night. We had friends over to dinner last night and now the family gets to gorge on leftover homemade mozzarella pizza and some fabulous concoction I made up on the spur of the moment involving crushed digestives with toasted almond slivers, topped with cream cheese mixed with melted white chocolate and vanilla, topped with crushed raspberries infused with lemon. Yum YUM. I probably didn't make this up actually - it is a classic combination which I probably came across in the back pages of a Sunday supplement. But it didn't involve a recipe book and that's a fairly rare thing for me. In any case, it is All Gone Now.