Cuppa Connections Ep. 22: Day 7 - Thank You For Being A Friend; Enjoying Coffee, Food, Laughter, and Travels With Girlfriends

The joy of friendships are profoundly important in our lives, and this episode embraces and showcases those joys.

 Cate and I met one of my great friends, California native Elise Maturri, when we were in California during our cross country road trip. 

Elise and I have been friends for over 20 years, and the stories and memorable moments that are shared in this episode will hopefully put a smile on your face, spark a thirst to find new and exciting restaurants, or to be a catalyst for you to take a road trip with your besties.

We hope you enjoy the journey.

Transcript

Portia: 0:00

Hey guys. Welcome to Cuppa Connections. I'm Portia, and we're here coming to you from our virtual cafe, Better with a Cup of Coffee. We are savoring relationships with coffee lovers around the world and sharing their experiences that have been better with a cup of coffee. There are lots of girlfriends and, and guy friends out who'd love to go on road trips with each other, and this is what this episode is about. My homie Elise Matturi is from Long Beach, California. And when Cate and I went on a road trip, we met her. Y'all, my, my homie has retired. She used to work for the city. Tell the people who you are.

Elise: 0:42

Oh my gosh. It's a plethora of things, but just to scrape the surface, I am a mother. I am a retired traffic officer for the city of Los Angeles. A job, which I enjoyed doing. And I retired from doing that, uh, for 32 years.. I am a grandmother. I have three adult children who are entrepreneurs doing something that I was unable to do, but things that I instilled in them doing by having our own business, working for themselves, but more importantly, having a job and a career that you enjoy doing. Like, I enjoy being a traffic officer. Uh, I am a grandmother. That is probably one of my greatest joys, aside from being a mother, which is my epitome joy. Funny story with how we met. Short and brief. Back in the day. Back in the day.

Portia: 1:30

OGee. OG.

Elise: 1:32

I saw Portia, and she is a former tennis player. So her legs are outstanding. Okay.

Cate: 1:40

Oh my God who you telling.

Elise: 1:41

She, she right up there with Tina Turner. For real. So we're at a party with some of my homegirls. I'm no longer associated with those people, but at the time we were cool. And I wanted to holler at her. So, you know, I asked her, I said, you, can you step outside with me so we can talk for a moment? And she said, sure. We go outside. And I, you know, I'm telling her, I'm, I'm digging her. I like to get to know her better. And she politely told me I wasn't her type, which was fine by me, but when she said, you know, we could be friends, I said, for real? She said, of course. I'm like, I'm with that. I said, can you do one small favor? And she said, what's that? And I'm leaning into her. My breath is always on point. When we go in there, can you a give them impression that I got them digits,. And I'm like, Goooooold. And she said, she smiled. She said, you're so cute. She said, I'll do that for. I said, she said, yeah, I got you. I said, alright, cool. Bet. And that's what she did.

Portia: 2:47

And we've been friends ever since.

Cate: 2:48

Aw.

Portia: 2:50

How long is that? I don't even know. 20 years?

Elise: 2:52

Over. Over 20 years.

Portia: 2:54

And, when we talk about road trips.

Cate: 2:57

Oh, that's your road dog.

Portia: 2:58

She's my road dog.

Cate: 2:59

So when y'all would take your road trips, would you, would you get your routine, your ritual? Would you go?

Elise: 3:06

Portia is the coffee person. I mean, I used to drink coffee and, you know, since I've survived cancer, I don't do caffeine, so I, I drink a lot of tea. Occasionally I'll have a cup, because I do have coffee here. But you know what I realized over the course of years, after a while, you have to discard the beans. I don't know what the lifespan is cause I have some that I, I, I've got a bag of beans that I got when I first went to the Dominican Republic, you know, since I've had to clear out my cabinets for my kitchen to be renovated.

Portia: 3:37

Still sealed?

Elise: 3:39

Yes, it

Portia: 3:40

How long ago was that?

Elise: 3:41

Um, seven years, maybe eight.

Portia: 3:45

Ooh.

Elise: 3:47

So yeah, it's still sealed. And a back and a bag of cocoa.

Portia: 3:51

I remember my mom had died and she had died in April of 20. 13 and.

Elise: 3:59

Unexpectedly.

Portia: 4:00

Unexpectedly. I decided I just wanted to take a road trip from LA to Vancouver and mm-hmm. I was going to do it my way. I was gonna camp. I'd never camped before. I was just gonna go up there by myself. So I'm talking to my homie and I'm just like, you know, this is a chance of a lifetime. You've never been to Canada. Let's do it. And she called. She was just like, I just don't know. And then sure enough, she calls me and she's like, let's do it. We camped, we did all kinds of stuff. We hiked, we did Well not because

Elise: 4:37

you, no, we didn't hike. Look,

Portia: 4:39

we didn't because of your knee.

Elise: 4:40

You know, my ass was in my 40s. There was no way in hell. I had never been camping. What in the hell. You talking about pitching a tent. I'm like,

Cate: 4:53

You were, you were in your forties?

Elise: 4:54

Girl, yeah.

Cate: 4:56

And you couldn't have done that?

Portia: 4:57

She had bad knees.

Cate: 4:58

Oh.

Portia: 4:59

Mm-hmm.

Meena: 5:00

I've always had bad knees.

Portia: 5:00

Tell em what happened. Tell em what happened.

Elise: 5:01

I played, I played basketball and softball in high school and in college. My knees were, they were gone. I'm like, wait a minute. First of all, you ain't never been camping. I ain't. I've been camping, but we had cabins.

Portia: 5:15

That wasn't camping.

Elise: 5:17

We, we ain't roughed with no damn tent. Ok we. I ghetto camp. Let me tell you, ghetto camping is you either in you car er, or you're in somebodies RV. And you only gonna be there. You only gonna be there overnight. Okay. That's a ghetto camp. You, you overnight cause it's, like, I gotta find the toilet? Na, I ain't doing all that. Okay. It's bad enough I gotta dig a hole. You feel me? I'm not doing all that.

Portia: 5:54

Wait a minute. Tell Cate and the audience about the time. Our first night camping. We were.

Elise: 6:02

Oh my God.

Portia: 6:02

Where were we?

Elise: 6:02

We were in Redding. We were in Redding.

Portia: 6:03

It was hot as haidezz. It was a hundred plus degrees in the daytime and at night. We had to leave at 3:00 AM. What?

Elise: 6:09

Oh my God. We wake up. and I got the flashlight. I'm like, come on, just come behind me. Just walk behind me. Cause I got the flashlight. We Yeah, We're trying to go to the bathroom cuz they had a facility for us to bathe. And I looked to my right and I'm like, wait a minute, did you see them eyes looking at us? Portia's like, what eyes? I said, uh ah. Hold up. Wait a minute. Wait. I go, I'm like, them eyes. Them eyes right there. And she looks, and the mind you, the eyes are not, they're looking right at me.

Portia: 6:47

Yes. They were like, locked in.

Elise: 6:50

And they're red, and I'm like, what the hell is that? I, I said, let's go. We hurry to the, to the facility. I said, girl, you're not moving fast enough. I pissed, brush my teeth. I was ready to go. Forget throwing some water on my face. I'm like, I'm good. Let's leave.

Portia: 7:08

Bad knees and all.

Elise: 7:10

Girl, my knees were good at that moment. We're coming out, and I'm like, Portia, if you don't hurry up. Cause we still had to finish breaking down the tent.

Portia: 7:20

Yeah, right. We did.

Elise: 7:22

We, we still had to finish breaking that down. We're hurrying up and I'm like, where did, I'm like, where'd it go? I'm looking for.

Portia: 7:29

That's true.

Elise: 7:30

I'm like, oh shii. I said, we gotta go. Cause I dunno where it went. We didn't know what it was. What in the forest has red eyes?

Portia: 7:38

Yeah. It was all red.

Cate: 7:40

It was red eyes?

Elise: 7:42

I come to realize later that it, it, it might have been a possum because, because I say that, because where I live at, before they cleared out all the roughage in this huge yard behind us.

Cate: 8:00

Oh yeah, they do have red eyes.

Elise: 8:02

I would see possums and sometimes I would go to my mail box late and it's about 120 yards from my home, and I noticed a possum on the fence when I was coming back. It was a big one, and I'm like, I'm not walking all the way around the building to get to my spot when I'm like 30 yards away. And I was just like, you come from me. I'm coming for you. And, its eyes were beady red looking at me, and then it it went the other way. I was like, that might have been, what the hell all that was. Cause we weren't deep in the forest. We were at a, at.

Portia: 8:43

We were at an RV park.

Elise: 8:45

Yeah, it was a RV park, so I'm like,

Portia: 8:47

We had a, we had a ball. God knows we had.

Elise: 8:50

The best time.

Portia: 8:51

We had a ball. We had the best times when we got road tripping. But on our trip down the La Jolla, I wanted to take her on the P C H, and that was so fun. But when we get there, I mean, we're at La Catania. Elise and I had been there once before. Yes. So that's why I wanted to go back down there because this

Elise: 9:11

And, we had stumbled on that restaurant, as a matter of fact. We just, so

Portia: 9:14

Yes.

Elise: 9:15

We were looking for a place to eat and, and we just happened to, to notice that and we're like, Let's go there.

Portia: 9:21

Yes. And we.

Elise: 9:23

It was a good place.

Portia: 9:23

It was gem. We had it, it was on a, a cloudy day. Yes. But when we went, when you go there and it's a warm, sunny day and we're up on the roof.

Elise: 9:32

Mm-hmm.

Portia: 9:33

And you could see the ocean through the, the buildings from downtown. Yes, you can. And the food is spectacular.

Cate: 9:41

Well, I loved what I put in my mouth that night.

Portia: 9:44

Oh my goodness.

Elise: 9:45

She and I.

Portia: 9:46

Mm-hmm.

Elise: 9:46

We love good food. And I think that's one of the things that as friends over the years, there's so many different things that we have that are fluid between the two of us, but food, I mean, you know, that's your wife. You know how well she cooks.

Cate: 10:02

Oh my God. Yes. The best cook.

Elise: 10:04

And me being a T O, the one thing I love with the fact that P lived in my patrol area. You tired?

Portia: 10:12

Now you about coffee. Coffee breaks.

Cate: 10:15

Oh, well there you go. There you go.

Portia: 10:17

This one right here? She would ring me up on my, on my phone. And she would say, homie, you got some coffee ready? Of course.

Elise: 10:23

What you doing? What you doing?

Portia: 10:25

What you doing?

Elise: 10:26

What you doing?

Portia: 10:27

I'm gonna like, aren't you supposed to be at work?

Elise: 10:28

Just, me, mind you, my shift starts at seven in the morning. So I would call Portia around nine thirty, ten, eleven ish. It was always before 12. Mm-hmm. And by that time, I have a number of citations. I'm like, whatcha you doing? So, I go on her street. And the first time I did, I was a little bit apprehensive because it's a preferential parking zone, which means you have to have a permit. You can park that for limited amount of time. So I know if they see my vehicle, the first thing they're gonna think, the citizens are gonna think that I'm out there enforcing. I'm not. And luckily for me, unless it was street sweeping, I wouldn't see any of my colleagues on that particular street. So I'd parked there. And I just go in, I take my shirt off, I chill. I'm like, you know, I got about a hour. You know, cause I would combine my lunch and my breaks together.

Portia: 11:27

Yeah.

Cate: 11:28

Okay.

Elise: 11:28

And, uh.

Portia: 11:29

Sometimes I'd have breakfast.

Elise: 11:31

I'd have breakfast. We, whatever Portia needed me to do, if it was something she needed my expertise on, or, or whatever. I would do that and sometimes I would exceed that time and I'm looking, I'm like, yo, I gotta leave for a minute. I'll be right back. She said, what you gonna do? I said, you know, I gotta write a ticket. I'm gonna go write a couple tickets I'll be back Tickets I'll be back.

Portia: 11:51

But on our trip down the La Jolla.

Elise: 11:54

Okay. La Jolla. Our first trip to La Jolla, we fell in love. I was absolutely taken aback because I've lived in California all my life. Southern California, born and bread, straight Outta Compton, reside in Long Beach. I'd never been to La Jolla. I passed by it.

Portia: 12:12

Really?

Elise: 12:13

I never stopped. I never stopped. It's like when you, when we went to in, in

Portia: 12:18

Encinitas? Mm-hmm.

Elise: 12:19

I'd never been there either. Passed all the time, because I had relatives that lived in San Diego. I hadn't stopped there.

Portia: 12:25

Wow.

Elise: 12:26

Like when I met someone who lived in Ocean Oceanside, I never stopped there. When we went to La Jolla the first time, I was super excited because being a kid, a black kid being raised in the sixties, there are a lot of places that you know, we didn't go to simply because of our hue. So to be an adult, and you have the opportunity to do that because it's not as restrictive. It's not as, it's not that big of an issue. Mm-hmm. I mean, we know what the, what the racial dynamics here are of our country and what goes on when you're in a area that others think you shouldn't be in. Mm-hmm. So, There are a lot of places I didn't go to as a kid and as an adult I'm able to experience those places. Mm-hmm. So, I, I've never been, so when we went there, because the thing with Portia is this, she, she is a true wonderlust individual. Truly to the core. To meet a person who left North Carolina and drove by herself, a black woman.

Cate: 13:28

Yeah.

Elise: 13:29

to LA. So, I mean, for us with travel, if, if I, the one thing Porsche has always loved about me is the fact that. If there's any situation that is tumultuous, adventurous, daring, scary, if I'm available, I'm gonna make myself available and I'm gonna be right there.

Cate: 13:54

Just like you did.

Portia: 13:56

That's right.

Cate: 13:56

When we went rafting down or tubing down the, um, Cape Fear River. That was fun. And you did this, I knew you were my girl when I was like, let's have a GTA moment. You were in the back. Cause I wanted a truck.

Elise: 14:10

You my lil G. Cate, my lil white chocolate. You my G like a mo fo. I've been down, I've been down from you from day one. But La Jolla, when we went there, it was wonderful. For me, when, when I go in the place and I don't see anything but people that look like they got a lot going on, and I know that we just regular. Mm-hmm. I'm like, oh, oh, okay. Let's, let's come on in here. But the waitress was like,

Portia: 14:40

Oh, wasn't she awesome?

Elise: 14:41

Yeah. How many? Two come like this way. I'm like, okay, because we're, we're not even dressed. We're just, we like, are Uber, Uber casual. Oh, ok.

Portia: 14:55

Oh, you mean the day that we, you and I went?

Elise: 14:57

And so I'm thinking, Ooh, they, they might not serve us that, that was my first time. Cause we're not, we're not really dressed. And this place is, it's nice. So I didn't think they were gonna even let us in. So she said, come on in. I'm like, oh, okay.

Portia: 15:11

And that's why I wanted to take you there for the second time, because I knew how the service was. You know, I knew how they were.

Cate: 15:20

And the service was amazing.

Portia: 15:22

Did you have, what Lynne had? Did you have the octopus?

Elise: 15:27

I had the octopus, and then she got it. That's what it was.

Portia: 15:30

Oh my God.

Elise: 15:31

Yeah, because what, what we didn't realize, you know, some restaurants, they typically don't change their menu, but this particular restaurant changes their menu all the time.

Portia: 15:39

Yes.

Elise: 15:40

And that's what, when we talked to, I think the chef or someone came out because I was raving so much about the octopus, cause the octopus was freaking exquisite.

Portia: 15:49

I know it, it had a little kick to it. I think it had chili oil and it had those garbanzo beans and,

Elise: 15:55

And I was trying replicate that and I'm like, I don't think I can. I was telling my daughter about it and she said, could you, can mommy, could you remember the components? I said, kind of. Mm-hmm. I said, but I don't, I don't think I can remember, remember all of them., you know, being a cook myself, and then when my daughter being a chef, anytime I have something really tasty, I try to get her to try to replicate that. But I'm, I told her, I said, you gonna have to go, you, you would.

Portia: 16:19

You know what you can do actually, do you? I have the picture of it. But then you can also go online to their menu while they still have it. And then you can see they have the ingredients in what it was. Cause I remember the first time,

Elise: 16:33

yeah.

Portia: 16:34

When I went, I had this squid ink pasta with these um, Ooh, these prawns.

Elise: 16:40

Yes.

Portia: 16:40

And it had, it had.

Elise: 16:41

Don't make that face Cate.

Cate: 16:43

I'm just.

Portia: 16:44

It was divine. And then it was, uh.

Elise: 16:46

Squid ink pasta is delicious.

Portia: 16:49

And then they, and, and it was a kick cuz they had pinto beans in it and then they had a little bit of chili oil. Just a little bit. Oh girl,

Elise: 16:57

Girl, I make my own chili oil, man. It's fire. It's fire.

Portia: 17:04

Fire.

Elise: 17:05

I have to have it, you know, I, I've put it on pretty much everything I eat if I want that kick.

Portia: 17:10

Mm-hmm. I never knew about it until we went to La Catania. Yes.

Elise: 17:16

The food is exquisite.

Portia: 17:18

It is.

Elise: 17:18

It's ambience is wonderful. It's very reasonably priced. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's another thing I enjoyed. Cause it was what the four of us, and, and we had alcoholic beverages.

Portia: 17:30

We were just having so much fun. And that's what I love about road trips with girlfriends is that. Man, we just have so much fun. We just do so much, so many different things and no, so many things gets our attention. What are, and there's a lot of stuff that happened.

Elise: 17:46

And I love it when Lenny comes because you know, Lenny with her OCD, when it comes to germs. Our lil germaphobe.

Portia: 17:52

But it's funny though. Remember we would always say, how is it that you're OCD with this, but you live downtown? Right?

Elise: 18:00

And, she takes public transportation, all the time. How you do that?

Portia: 18:05

How you do that? But, that's our girl.

Elise: 18:09

But I'm like, more power to ya.

Cate: 18:12

Right.

Portia: 18:13

All right, homie, we gotta get outta here, but we wanna say to you.

Elise: 18:18

Yes, ma'am.

Portia: 18:19

You are such a treat.

Cate: 18:20

You are.

Portia: 18:21

This is the epitome of a friend. All my girlfriends are amazing, and I know that everyone who has friends and they, they've taken road trips and developed these bonds. That's what it's about. You know?

Elise: 18:34

Yes, it is.

Portia: 18:35

As I, I mentioned in the LA road trip podcast, it took me seven years to develop friendships. But you see, this is, it was worth the wait.

Cate: 18:44

Oh, absolutely.

Portia: 18:45

All right. We gotta go. But, we love you.

Elise: 18:48

Love you too.

Portia: 18:49

Thank you.

Cate: 18:51

This is I love you. Sign.

Portia: 18:52

Yes, it is.

Cate: 18:53

In, in.

Portia: 18:53

Sign language.

Cate: 18:54

Sign language. There you go.

Portia: 18:57

Yes. Bye. Bye.

Cate: 19:00

Bye girl, thank you.

Elise: 19:03

Oh, you're welcome boo. See ya.

Cate: 19:05

Bye.

Portia: 19:06

I'm Portia White, and I hope you've enjoyed today's conversation. I'd like to give a special thanks to our sponsor betterwithacupofcoffee.com. If you want to be our guest on our show, email me at cuppaconnections@gmail.com. And if you liked what you heard, please write and review our podcast. And, join us again soon on Cuppa Connections.