Good Friends

We sat with a glass of champagne and a stack of Elderhostel catalogs and talked about the programs we might enroll in.

This was the pinata version of Cousins Day. We have previously had several overnights at my friend Jeri's house, but Jeri is now selling her house and living in Arizona, so we weren't sure how we would continue the tradition.

But Pat (the Pat who was on the France/Italy trip with us) said that her husband was going out of town for the night and asked if we wanted to know if we would like to get together at her house.

There were only three of us (plus Pat), but we had a great time. Char picked me up arund 11 a.m. and we got to Pat's shortly before noon. Audrey arrived about an hour later.

I had brought pictures of our trip and we had a good time looking through them, especially showing them to Audrey and telling her about our adventures. She and her husband have traveled extensively (a lot of Elderhostel programs) and so we were able to laugh about our respective experience and share memories of places we had all visited.

We're looking at two programs that we might all decide to go on. One is a film festival in Arizona, where Pat and Audrey and their husbands have gone several times. The other is a cruise along the Eerie Canal, ending at Niagra Falls (which Char has never seen). Neither would be for this year, given the time frame and the expense (and the expenses we have coming up this year!), but both might be something we'd like to do next year.

It's just so nice to sit around with friends you've known for nearly 50 years. We talked about how the nice thing is that you don't have to "explain" stuff, because whatever "stuff" is part of who you are today, we all have known it from having either been there at the time, or talked about it over the years.

Pat has an extensive garden and when the air conditioning in the house got cold, we walked around looking at all the stuff she has growing. including a few bushes dripping with blueberries, and a couple of bushes of pearl tomatoes, which we had enjoyed at lunch--as sweet as fruit. I loved them.

As the day got later, we eventually came back inside and got ready for dinner, to which we had all contributed. There was way too much food, but all of it delicious. And Pat had gelato for us for dessert, of course.

After dinner, we all descended on Pat's computer. She needed some help with working with her photos and between Char and myself, we managed to get her questions answered and her photos sort of organized. It was fun to see hers, since we had not yet seen her photos from the trip. I was particularly happy to see this one:

which was taken in Nice. I clearly remembered taking pictures of Pat and this statue-man and couldn't understand why I hadn't found it among my photos. When I saw this picture, I realized that I had taken the picture with Pat's camera, not my own. That was one mystery solved (but I still don't know how I managed to erase the video I took of fireworks in Italy).

After we'd solved the problems of the world, it was time to turn in. Pat has great recliners and after I'd watched "The Daily Show" I was asleep in minutes, waking up only once during the night.

We all got up this morning and had the chocolate croissants I'd brought and then solved a few more world problems before we got in the car to come home.

It really was a lovely overnight and now we have to figure out how to get Rich out of town again! (The dogs make it all but impossible to do such a thing here, unfortunately.)

This is as good week for being with old friends. My friend Lynn arrives from Houston tomorrow and on Saturday we are joining with other women who all used to work in the same ob/gyn office for an overnight up at Lake Tahoe.