As far as I'm concerned there are no rules when it comes to lasting friendships.
Get it right and you have a friend for life.
The concept of sustainability is so ubiquitous in the literature - sustainable this and sustainable that - so why not sustainable friendship? That's the way it is with Phyllis and Chantal, who remain such sweet friends even after saying our hasta la vistas at the end of our travel. Chantal visits us from her home in Texas, reads my blog like it's her morning paper (I think), and doesn't dissolve into tears over her e-mails to us that go unanswered for several days. She must have a lovely home as she is always working on something; if she isn't painting the outside (mind you using a tall ladder but without a harness), she's tending to her garden, one time nearly losing her digits to a voracious lawnmower.
Phyllis lives on the West End of Manhattan busy as any scientist doing her research work at Mount Sinai but finds time between lab work and teaching to reconnect with us. She's working on a grant involving her work on gene expression to reduce amyloid plaques in the brain gross amounts of which are found in Alzheimer's disease. The techniques and concept are so complex the way she described them, that they left so many tangles in my neurons. Do we see us getting closer to a significant breakthrough? Keep up the good work Dr. Phyllis.
Hey Maria, doesn't your friend Sally screen grant applications for the National Science Foundation? This may be one for her. You think you may be able to pull a few strings?
Chantal is in town and today we all met for lunch at Carmine's. Been there many times and counting, Italian cuisine family style servings and the wait is usually one and a half hours. Tip for the tourist: go to the Upper West Side location instead of the midtown branch to avoid the long wait and the loud atmosphere. At Carmine's, food is consistently delicious, bread uber-garlicky, we love that and this time the place is empty until a pack of about forty summer camp kids ambushed the quiet ambiance.
What were we thinking? We're four petite ladies with super-size appetites, now being served with portions large enough for four days of dinner - a huge platter of house salad to die for, seafood pasta, delicioso. Definitely worth the trek to the UWS. And we finished all the food! I've always vowed to leave room for dessert but have yet to get there. Although, we had cappuccino, at five bucks a piece, not nearly as good as Caffe' Sant' Eustachio, but let's save that for another blog. Coffee divine!
It's always good to see good friends, I just wish the visits could be more often. Enjoy your cruise and maybe we could plan a trip together again. I promise not to make you eat those black sesame seed candies ever. Remember the ride to Gibraltar with Jan and Greg and their lovely blackened-with-sesame-seed-teeth grin? And we won't embarrass you at the airport by unpacking our luggage overloaded with manchego and olives of all things. Thank goodness they weren't stinky! Those Spaniards at the check-in counter were so mean, a few kilos overweight and they couldn't just look the other way?
I'll probably be ready to travel again when this swine flu scare dies down.
No matter what, we'll always pick up where we left off.
