Sitting down with friends....

We were talking about men—don't know how we got on that subject—but there we were, four women having dinner at a place called Turks and Frogs in Tribeca, some of us meeting for the first time. We found we had much in common, and even before dinner was over, we realized this was one of those rare and wondrous occasions where everything clicked.

One of us, okay, well, me, started talking about a boyfriend I once had when I lived in Canada. One week, E. and I decided to go camping in Algonquin Provincial Park, a vast wilderness area four-hours north of Toronto. I'm not sure why the two of us—Jews, who had no experience in the wild—thought this would be a good idea, but we did. E. seemed confident he could handle any problem that came along. 

The first night, after we had set up our tent, eaten dinner and gone to bed, we heard a bear. How did we know it was a bear? Well, for one, we could smell it. And for two, it was moving around outside without much delicacy, making it's way through the woods with grunts and shuffles.

Nice bear, nice....

Suddenly, E starts pushing me towards the opening flap to be a protective barrier between him and the bear. "What are you doing?" I hissed, hoping the bear wouldn't hear. E. was shaking in his boots, scared to death, but I felt calm, thinking: What makes you think the bear will come through the front door and eat me? If the bear attacks, he won't care what entrance he uses! Later, too late, I left E. and Toronto: that camping trip in the wilds of Canada had revealed his true nature.

Stop it!

One of the other women at dinner told a similar story: J. and her college boyfriend were active in the Vietnam protests of the mid-sixties, marching at Univ. of Wisconsin, a political hotbed. At one march, things got out of hand: police threw tear gas, as student protestors threw whatever they could get their hands on, and violence escalated on both sides. J. turned to her boyfriend to say, "Maybe we should get out of here...." when she saw he'd already taken off, flapping his legs in record speed down the block.

Moral of the story? I'm not sure, but sitting with friends telling stories about past debacles sure is fun. We laughed so hard that night because we'd survived and were there to tell about it.

Here are a few other friends and family I've been sitting down with while visiting NY:

 Katrina and Mekko at the loft

 Lunch with Lynn at Studio Bouley

 Connie on the High Line

 Outwalkingthedog, out walking her dog in Riverside Park

Molly from LA at Grandaisy Bakery

 

dear Uncle Cecil