How often do we end a brief, casual conversation with a friend, "Let's get together soon," or "We'll have to get together," and then forget to follow up on that great idea? I'm sorry to say I do far too often. Intentions are sincere, but life gets busy, or the doldrums set in, and the phone call just doesn't get made.
In December, Lynne and I ran into Venise in Costco, a friend from our neighborhood who I haven't had much of a chance to visit with in the past several months. She and her husband were in the middle of moving out of our immediate area, fortunately only about a half hour away. Still, it wouldn't be the same not to bump into Venise at church or at Day's Market down the street from time to time. I said, "We really need to get together for lunch one day soon." We all agreed, and said maybe in January, after the move and after the holidays.
A week or so ago I bumped into Helen, a mutual friend of ours, and caught myself saying the same thing, "Let's get together for lunch soon." And the conversation with Venise came back to me. I knew I had to follow up.
Today we met at Brick Oven -- Venise, Helen, Lynne, Cindy, Annette, Faye and me. Annette, who we call the Cupcake Lady, came with a cute woven vine basket filled with attractive and yummy chocolate cupcakes decorated with tiny red hearts on the generous chocolate frosting wrapped in clear plastic cups and cellophane bags tied in festive red ribbon. (Weight Watchers points value? Have no idea, but surely there's a rule somewhere that says if it's from a dear friend at a special lunch, there are no points.)
We had asked for a round table so that we could all take part in every conversation (Grandma always said I was afraid I'd miss something, and I guess she was right), and they put us in the back corner of the Banquet Room. Hmmmm, I wonder if we looked rowdy. Here's our cute waiter, Kris. You can ask him.
We spent an hour and a half visiting and laughing. A little "problem solving", too, like helping Annette to find a good ring tone for her cell phone, and talking about fun places and activities for this summer's Youth Conference. But an hour and a half really isn't enough time, so we talked about making this a monthly gathering. There's nothing like good friends to blow away the mid-winter blahs. Come spring, maybe we'll be meeting out on Lynne's yard swings.
Kris was still smiling when we left and helped us out by taking our picture, so maybe we weren't too obnoxious.
3 comments:
What a fun time we had. Thank you for organizing us and documenting it with pictures. I love all of you! When with friends everything else just slips away. Thank you.
Thanks, Pam for taking pictures and the biggest thank you is for organizing this group. I live next door to Helen, across the street from Cindy and do I ever get to just talk? Not often. Well, Cindy comes over every two or three weeks to just chat and that's wonderful but Helen? Never.
This will be a good thing, even a great thing.
I loved it. Thanks so much. Can't wait till we do it again.
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