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If you know me, you know that the title of this post means I'm excited.  Really, really super-duper excited.  Too excited to type, in fact.  And if you know me, you know I can type pretty quickly and accurately. So writing something like this "al;skjf;ozijsdf;zdsifosdijf" is saying something.  Dan likes to joke that I can type faster in French than he can in English. (It's true.)

And just why am I oh, so excited?? Because the mailman just knocked on my door and left me a package.  It was from amazon.com and I had no idea what it was.  Amazon? Amazon? I didn't order anything from Amazon? Did I? Have I gone completely insane? What is this?

mystery package

I opened up the package and found....drumroll please....the Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook! Ah! You have no idea how thrilled I was!  Literally jumping for joy.  I have wanted a Barefoot Contessa cookbook for years now (yes, years...I am not joking).  Why I haven't bought one for myself, I do not know.  Some force of self-restraint that is otherwise completely absent from my life had apparently prevented me from it.  But now I have one!!!  And I could not be more excited about it! (Can you tell I'm really excited??)

there it is! mine, all mine! 

But the most exciting part was solving the mystery of where this book came from.  The return address was somewhere in amazon.com-land (so, no clues there) and I was pretty sure (like 97% sure) that I hadn't ordered it for myself.  And it hit me! My friend Dinah and I had recently been talking about Barefoot Contessa and she asked if I had any of her cookbooks.  DINAH!! Oh, Dinah!  Dinah lives in Seattle and it was only 9:30 am here (aka 6:30 am there), so I texted her in fear a phone call might wake her up, "Did you send me the Barefoot Contessa book??? It just arrived on my doorstep!!!"  And sure enough, Dinah was awake (such an early bird) and she did send it to me!  I immediately called her to thank her for the book and was fighting back tears the entire time.  Haha, I'm such a disaster, I know.  It was just so nice of her to think of me and to go through all this trouble to send me a book, a book that I absolutely love.  She is such a great friend.

Dinah and me in Seattle last summer

Dinah and I became good friends when we were studying abroad together in Paris for our Junior year of college.  We both went to Colby and had sort of known each other since Freshman year, but our friendship was solidified abroad.  We had a French professor who once told us that a friendship made abroad is a friendship for life.  He was totally right.

Dinah and me in St. Malo, France, spring 2005

Thank you, Dinah!  Gros bisous!