A special day

On Sunday I had the awesome opportunity to meet another blog friend - Mrinalini. She's a beautiful young woman who found my blog quite awhile ago while she was living in India. Now she's going to school in Los Angeles and just completing an internship in the San Francisco area. (I do miss seeing all those visits from India on my counter...) So we finally had a chance to meet!

It felt like being with an old friend who I hadn't seen for a couple of years. We know a lot about each other from our blogs and Facebook. We cruised around Palo Alto and Stanford, and we pretty much talked non-stop for four hours. Well, except when we were eating. Went to an Indian restaurant. She said for me to just find a table and she'd order for us. The food was very, very good and I even learned how to pronounce some of the items!

She's heading back to LA soon, but plans to visit this area again in the future. When she does, I'm hoping she can find time to come to our house for dinner so she can meet Ed and Jenni and her kids. She knows them all via my blog and Jenni's blog!

The internet is truly a wonderful thing. Brings so many wonderful people into our lives that we would never have met before.

See you soon (I hope!), Mrinalini!

One BIG highlight from the NYC Trip

We just returned last night from a 5-day trip to New York City to see it "done up" for the holidays. It was a totally great trip and I'll write more about it later, but I wanted to mention one special highlight. I got a chance to meet my blog pal, Maria, and her hubby for lunch! When she found out I was heading to NYC (via Facebook) she told me that she was only a couple of hours away and that the two of them had been wanting to visit New York - so what better time.



And it was such fun. There's always a little nervousness meeting someone in person that you've only known through the ethernet. But after a few minutes we were all comfortable and yakking away. Of course, Maria and I recognized each other right away and gave each other a big hug, squealing a bit as we did so. Like a couple of teenagers. The husbands just looked on not quite knowing what to do. Poor dears.

Lunch was really good Thai food, and lots of laughing and talking. We talked about our daughters, our blog friends, Maria's novel. The men talked about guy things like their military careers. In her blog, Maria noted that I was "tiny". I think she meant short - tiny I'm not!! Of course, to me she was the one who was the normal height.

At the end of the lunch date there were hugs all around and talk about them visiting us in California. That would be totally cool! It's too bad that we live so far apart that it may be quite awhile before the chance to meet again comes up. But we still have our blogs, Facebook, and e-mail.

Mo

This past weekend my friend, Maureen (Mo) came from San Diego to visit me. Mo and I became friends waaaayyyy back in 1982 when we both worked at University Medical Center in Tucson. Actually, when I first met Mo, she scared the hell out of me! Not sure why, but I totally thought she didn't like me and I tried to stay out of her path. Then we found ourselves both taking classes at the junior college at the same time so decided to meet for coffee one night. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. We're both movie junkies so we would have movie marathon days every 4-6 months. Even though we don't seem to talk to each other more than once or twice a year, when we do get together it's like no time has passed. We have so many good memories and find ourselves laughing about our past adventures until we puke (not literally...). My husband was a bit amazed by the number of times we responded to one of his questions with exactly the same words! This is a picture of us 18 years ago when I made a return visit to Tucson after moving to California.

Her trip out here, as with most of our times together, involved food, wine, and laughter. We did the Livermore wineries, strolled through antique shops in Niles, and ate sushi. Mo actually introduced me to sushi in Tucson over 22 years ago.

And we talked. About old times. About current times. About how our lives have changed and all the life events we have shared with each other. We see ourselves, and each other, growing older. Did we really, at one time, wonder what we'd be doing at 40? Did we really buy each other Snickers bars to celebrate dual promotions? Did we really eat hot fudge sundaes at 6:00am on that trip to Las Vegas? Did we really run on a beach singing the theme song to Chariots of Fire? Did we really watch Officer and a Gentleman six times? It all seems like such a long time ago.

We did promise to see each other more often, and to write and call more often. Maureen is a silversmith and makes some awesome jewelry at her shop in Spanish Village in San Diego. I've added her website as a link in case you'd like to visit it.

I find that, as I grow older, long time friends become more and more important. They share my history, they know me well, I don't need pretenses, it's a huge comfort zone.

Thanks for the visit, Mo.