Ode to a blender........a love story......

July 1979. We were living in our sleepy little college town that summer. In a house behind the library, up an alley way on Fourth Street. My room mates and I. Classes were over. We took little jobs during the day to pay our rent. Weekend days were spent floating in a dirty river, riding silly bicycles through town and laying out on tin foil covered loungers on the little roof outside our 2nd floor window, our bodies slathered in iodine tinged baby oil . Nights were spent escaping the broiling heat of our attic bedroom by sitting on what we considered our veranda, talking and laughing. Some weekends, my boyfriend would travel the winding roads to visit me. It was a sweet summer. The summer of '79.
The week before my boyfriend was to leave for Italy, my room mate somehow got her hands on a blender. A Norelco blender. Never owning a blender before, I was quite intrigued by the possibilities. As the weekend approached, I began to plan a very special good-bye for my boyfriend's visit, knowing that when we parted, it would be many weeks before we would see each other again. I decided I wanted to use the blender to heighten the importance of our final weekend together before he went off to Italy (where I was certain he would find a nice Italian girl!). So, I set about experimenting with what type of recipe I could make to insure not just a special weekend, but a VERY special weekend. Feeling very grown up....me with my blender.....I imagined a beautiful drink....icey, unique, spiked. Using my room mates as my taste testers, I began experimenting with impromptu recipes. As the evening wore on, our laughter mounted and the recipes went from bad to worse. But, wanting to keep those Italian girls at bay, I continued to try. To help me in my quest to head of a broken heart, my room mates held fast to their duties.....tasting, tasting, tasting. As my creative juices became increasingly laced with whatever cheap alcohol I was using, I hit on an idea that I was certain would meet my goal. A red, white and blue dacquari. Everyone agreed it was the perfect, perfect drink to bid farewell to my beloved beau. Dacquaris were very in vogue at that time. To be honest, I can't remember the exact recipe. But what I do recall is that as I mixed what was to be the patriotic love potion, the lid flew off and every ounce of whatever was in that blender flew everywhere---all over the taste testers and I, on the walls, the floor, the windows, the chairs, the sink........ everywhere. I was heartbroken. My fantasies of a special drink were dashed. I was certain that I had no way to keep my boyfriend from those Italian girls. I was sure they could use blenders.

Little did I know, that July night in 1979, as I washed down the apartment, that both the boy and a blender would be my beloved companions on a rainy Sunday in August 2007.
Today I graduated to FULL LIQUIDS. In the life of a lap bander, this means that I can have creamier foods/drinks. That may not sound like much. But, it is. I can take ordinary foods and blend them into liquid! Soups. Fruits. Yogurt. Shakes. And, so, that boy---my husband of 25 years---and I ventured out this morning to find a new blender. When we returned home, the boy sat at the dining room table and played his guitar while I experimented with my blender. Creamy chicken broccoli soup---blended into a liquid. My fantasy was complete. Full liquid. No Italian girls in sight.