Vista del Valle
I was there in ‘99. We were five for lunch and the only patrons. There was a little girl at this restaurant, younger of the owner’s daughters, that I realized was very taken with my necklaces. Beads, just plain ol sparkly plastic beads, 3 or 4 strings. We played eyeball/grin tag for awhile and after we were all finished eating everyone else went out onto the deck. I crooked my finger and she looked at her bigger sister. With permission she moved a couple of steps closer and I held out a string of beads. Her eyes went 'deer in the light' and she raced back to her sister. There was a little scuffle of Go....no, you GO...until the older sister came and got the beads and put them on her. The eyes, the smile that radiated from her beautiful little face are forever in my mind. I joined our crew on the deck for a local beer and a view to rave about. As we were tromping back through the restaurant there was a bit of production between this little girl and her parents and I wondered if I had made trouble of some sort. This little girl was making a very strong case about something and although her parents were smiling at us, they were not making their daughter very happy, Jerry's response to all this was..."what kind of Petie mess are we in now?' There was an object being passed back and forth from daughter to Mom that seemed to be causing the heated debate and close to tears plea. Then it was done. Mom went back into the kitchen (sorta), Dad went behind the counter and the older sister shrugged her shoulders and started to clear the table. This little girl (back turned to us) stood stock still with her fist clutching the thing of debate and her arms, by her sides, solid steel stiff for about 5 seconds. In that time her Mom was watching, unseen by her, from the kitchen doorway and her Father was playing busy but watching and the sister was clearing the table but watching and we could not help but standing stock still ourselves and watching. She whipped around and was completely pissed off. She stomped right over to me so I went to my knee with a smile. With eyes locked she told me……I love my new necklace and thank you very much for this beautiful gift, (she had her beads in her hand) this is a white-winged-dove (she had opened her hand to show me the bottom of the wood piece where this was written in English) it was painted by my sister (she had moved closer to show me the tiny painting on a piece of wood and then pointed to her sister) and the wood was carved by my Dad (she turned it over to let me see the carved woodwork and pointed to her Dad) Then she looked at me (with a huge smile plastered all over my face) and smiled. I could not help but give her a hug and she handed me the prize. I was so completely charmed with the story (entirely in Spanish) that I didn't see the gift coming. So with a small gasp and wide eyes I seek the parents, who are both behind the counter with plastered smiles and a nod for me. I take the gift and am speechless for the moment I take, to completely examine my beautiful new treasure. I look back up to her eyes and we are all smiling. I say gracias. She spins around and races to her parents. I was gifted this carved/painted knick-knack ****THAT I DATED**** and keep on my desk. She didn't want to give it to me, she wanted her parents to do it.

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