Yesterday Leo and I hosted a brunch for a delightful bunch of friends who had gathered from places near and far, the farthest being Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Brunch at Casa Romero is always a pleasant time for us to see friends and relax. My hard working husband Leopoldo is, without fail, at his delightful snuggery on Gloucester Street every Friday and Saturday night, when we are in town. He likes to greet the three generations of hungry and thirsty revelers who loyally return to his venerable restaurant which as you probably know is a bright ray of Mexican sunshine right here in Back Bay Boston.
Anita's photo of Leo and Bud was the only snappy shot of our party that day so they will have to represent the rest of us who were also being just as jolly.  

On Sunday we can breathe easy and visit with our friends. This week the roster included; Will Chapman the Director of Marketing and Development at Opera Boston and his husband Professor Ricardo Barreto Director of Urban Arts at the Massachusetts College of Art
 
Anita Klaussen, travel photographer, fine art dealer, and wife of Bud Collins who, of course, is the raconteur par excellence of the tennis world. Don't miss his travel articles on their web site because Bud is one smart cookie and delightful to read. I suspect he could carry on about the polar ice cap and I would be riveted to his every word.
 
Mike Mennonno is an Administrator at The Franklin Institute, Boston and a prolific blog journalist. Mike is the also the self proclaimed "Naked Gardener" and too bad this doesn't include naked lunch because he is yummy. This guy is my blog tutor, although he prefers "Blog Guru", but Blog Professor would be more like it, he's as bright as a comet! Go see for you self at.

Fred Atherton is a Harvard man with a Master’s in Architecture from the University of Oregon and a walking encyclopedia of architectural lore. He is a young man with a big future anchored solidly on the foundations of architectural history from which he builds a house of sophisticated world interest. Fred is an exciting companion for me as we trudge Boston's byways where we inevitably get into lots of La La about the built environment with a little bit of Ryan Landry thrown in to add spice the pot.
 
So those are the dramatis personae and here are a few snippets of what was bandied about:
 
Bud and Anita have just returned, this Friday, from Chiang Mai, Thailand where Bud’s grandparents had been missionaries making a perilous journey to that city in 1887 all the way up the Mae Nam Ping river from Bangkok. The trek then took 3 months because they were going up river against the current (a fact of opposition that may be allegorical - Iory's comment) Once the couple arrived on the scene they quickly got to work creating a school that developed into the Prince Royal College. It still operates today and is one of the most respected institutions of secondary education in that nation. Bud told us that he had never known his grandparents so he naturally wanted to see their home, but sadly the actual building no longer exists. He was guided to the location of the old homestead in Chiang Mai, now the second largest city in Thailand, if we can judge by Anita's beautiful photos this is a charming city indeed. At the promised location, Bud discovered a plaque commemorating his revered forebears and as he stood there it occurred to him that this was the very spot where his father, aunts and uncles were all conceived. Bud's tone of voice and pride in this story said a lot about the power of finding our roots no matter how distant in time and place.
 
Ricardo grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico, where coincidentally much later on, Leo's parents retired. So Ricardo and Leo have a lot of common references. Ricardo is a professor of art and has been a fine art dealer. He has also, like Leo has been a successful business man bringing the delights and nourishments of Mexican cuisine to New England. Ricardo and his cousin started Boston’s first tortilla factory in Jamaica Plain and Casa Romero has been a loyal customer of the company for years. Tortillas as you may know, are the staple of Mexican life and have been so for the last 3000 years or more.
 
Ricardo who is a suave and cosmopolitan charmer is long retired from his family tortilla business and he told me that with the settlement from his share in that business he and Will bought their home in New Hampshire, where his true heart and soul find solace and repose. Actually he did not use quite those words, I'm sure you can hear my interpretation here, please forgive my flourishes. What he did say was that when he and Will left New Hampshire that morning, a beautiful fluffy snow was gently falling. While we here on the coast were suffering the wishy washy vagaries of rain, sleet and arctic blasts, in New Hampshire they were enjoying the beauty and protection of two feet of accumulated snow blanket. Again forgive the bit about vagaries; he was just saying how beautiful real winter is.
 
Anita’s conversational talents are a cornucopia of enthusiasm. She is, of course, Bud's constant companion on his travels around the globe and together they follow the bouncing tennis ball to all corners of the earth. Her photo essays documenting their wanderings are nothing short of dreamscapes. Anita’s visions spring from her bubbling joive de vei brought to life by her powerful creative talents. Take a look at "One of the charming Thai girls in the Flower Parade" and you'll see what I mean.
 
Anita is never one to sit long in one place. She told us that she is making a pilgrimage to the archeological site of Choquequirao in the Andes, one of the sacred Inca cities 6888 feet up in the mist-shrouded mountains. She will naturally be taking photos and I am looking forward to seeing them when she returns at the beginning of June. The tallest mountains I am likely to hike in are the Green Mountains of Vermont which by comparison are sorta like mountainous bulges.
 
Will recounted an interesting and exciting fact about his opera company, Opera Boston. The productions originate here in Boston; sets, costumes, direction and chorus, only recruiting the principals from an international roster of artists. I had no idea that the sets and costumes were conceived designed and produced here and I am really happy to hear it. Now I know why, when seeing OB’s latest, "Semele" the whole collaborative production was cohesive, fresh and powerful. The fact that Opera Boston is creating entire opera productions and sometimes even commissioning original scores and libretti makes them a unique company and one that we can authentically claim as our own.

Fred, Mike Leo and I also contributed our two cents worth of conversational scintillation to the general chit chat but the perfect margaritas I was imbibing seem to have glossed the details into a pleasant frosting of good times and good company for which the Casa Romero is justly famous.