Before I start today's blog, I have to show you a picture of Chelsea after coming in from the rain. Is she the cutest, or what?
I was supposed to pick up my friend, Stephen, from LaGuardia Airport this afternoon, but he arrived in NY early, because his return trip from Libya (yes, Stephen, world traveler that he is, went on a 3-week tour of Libya!) got a little detoured and instead of ending up in Toronto, he ended up in Newark on Friday. Since he was supposed to fly here on Monday anyway, he figured he’d just stay!
So, instead of picking him up at the airport this afternoon, instead I had lunch with my old friend, Nancy, and I’m going to see a Wednesday matinee with Stephen, which suits us just fine!
Nancy, Eric and I became friends in 1989. Nancy used to date one of Eric’s best friends, before she married her husband, Charley. At the time, she and I worked in the same building in Manhattan – 1251 Avenue of the Americas – the old Exxon building. She worked for Shea & Gould, the law firm (yes, Shea Stadium was named after Bill Shea of Shea & Gould). I was working for Price Waterhouse (not yet PricewaterhouseCoopers).
We hit it off immediately and became the very best of friends. In fact, Nancy even lived with me and Eric for six months (in the leopard room upstairs) when she was in-between apartments! When she left, Eric and I had “empty nest syndrome.”
Nancy was such a good friend and although we never lived more than a few miles apart, we did lose touch for a while. I got back in touch with her right before we moved to San Diego, because I just couldn’t bear to leave town without saying a proper goodbye.
Nancy has been married for about 15 years and has three beautiful daughters, Katherine, Olivia, and Charlotte. Today, I met Nancy for lunch and we went to a great Thai place on Bell Boulevard in Bayside called Erewan. Then, we went to their school to pick them all up and bring them home. It was so much fun.
Have you ever seen three sweeter, more beautiful girls, smiling so nicely?
Nancy and I had a chance to catch up and then I got to see how grown up the girls are. Her oldest is now 12 and the youngest is 6. It’s hard to believe our little Nancy has three daughters – one of whom is almost a teenager. Since Nancy is about 5 years younger than me (7 years younger than Eric) we always thought of her as being so young – thus the “Miss Nancy.” I’ll never know how that started, but we both called her that.
Recently, I was working with a girl named Nancy in San Diego and I told her I always had the urge to call her Miss Nancy, because it just seemed right to put “Miss” before “Nancy!” She didn’t get it!
Anyway, I left Nancy's house with her three beautiful daughters doing their homework together at the dining room table and came home to meet Eric. We took a nap (what else?) and then Eric made us crab cakes and my leftover salad from last night for dinner. I saw that there was a PBS Special called FINDING BILLY ELLIOT from 8:00pm – 9:30pm, so of course I made Eric watch it, much to his chagrin.
Mrs. Peppy and Miss Nancy
Although he loved the show, watching an hour and a half of how they scoured the country auditioning thousands of boys to find the three who now play Billy on Broadway was not his idea of fun. He quickly fell back to sleep.
It was such a great special and, at the very end, Greg gave a backstage tour. He’s so funny and cute. I love him! I really think I'm his biggest fan!
Tomorrow I’m going to take Andrew and Susan out to brunch and then Susan’s going to work and Andrew and I are going to resolve some problems with my new laptop. It’s not really problems with the laptop, but rather me learning how to do certain things. The laptop is really fabulous and I’m loving it so far, adjusting to the new keyboard and, I think, typing as fast as ever!
I’m even adjusting to the new mouse and it’s hardly slowing me down at all! I am so grateful that Andrew helped me pick out what to buy and then set it all up for me. When I go back to SD the only thing I’ll have to do myself is get the printer going. I hope I can handle that much!