Searching for Love in the All the Right Places

So, Fara and I have gone through this strangely mild winter, still meeting at the Eat’n Park (and occasionally at the Panera Bread), a little more off-and-on than usual. I’d say we average about every other week these days, but not for lack of trying. Life just gets in the way, and even a short jaunt to Cranberry on a Saturday morning can be too much for one or both of us to handle.

What I wouldn’t have predicted was that she and I are both settling into a calm, peaceful period of our lives. (Well, mine will get more peaceful once we’re finally done moving into our new house, in what is turning out to be the longest house-move in recorded history, just behind the Hebrews wandering in the desert for 40 years.) I’d say that I miss our breakfasts over panic-induced anxiety attacks brought on by crises big and small (well, mostly big, from our own perspectives) … but that would be cruel. I certainly don’t miss the crises in my own life, and I’m relieved to see so few in her life these days too.

I think we’ve paid our dues and have earned a little breathing space. I’m (slowwwly) moving into my dream house, and she’s luxuriating in a lovely engagement to a very nice, arrogance-free guy who makes her smile and relax.

But that has also meant that our daily lives need less mental mediation from friends and less emotional regrouping over coffee and high-protein breakfasts.

“I think I’ll sleep in this week and spend time with my [kids, husband, dog, guinea pig, household chores].” (Well, maybe not so much the “household chores.”) That stretches out our weekly forays into semiweekly forays (or do I mean biweekly? Last time I checked, both terms mean both). I’m not really complaining that my daily life now includes bigger closets, my own big home office, room for friends and family, and chandeliers coming out my ears, or that her daily life includes a doting man (who happens to live up near me, meaning I’m envisioning more Fara visits if she makes it up this way more often), maturing children/young adults, and confidence in jobs and choices.

Not. Complaining.

But, I hope that sometime soon we both find these awesome life-upgrades less dazzling and time-consuming, and that perhaps we’ll see a dire need to get together every Saturday to share our blessings and recount all the funny, happy things that have happened in the past week. Neither of us may currently need the free psychotherapy over bacon, but we still need time to share, love and laugh. We just won’t be sobbing uncontrollably anymore in between bursts of laughter.

And, I’ve decided that’s okay.

Fara, wanna meet me for breakfast and belly-laughs next week?

—Linda

An Extra Plate, Please

“Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so between them both, you see, they licked the platter clean.”  —Mother Goose

Linda watches her carbs and I watch . . . well, I haven’t decided what I watch except my pocketbook. So, being two cost- and diet-conscious women spending way too much time at Eat’n Park, we have reduced our ordering to a science. Linda orders the Breakfast Smile with bacon, home fries, scrambled eggs and wheat toast. I order a side of sausage and an extra plate. And then when the food comes, we divide it up. Linda gets the eggs, bacon and a smidgen of home fries (shh, don’t tell her doctor), and I get the sausage, toast and home fries.  And we both leave happy.

Our order has made many waitresses eye me cautiously when I say, “An extra plate, please.”  One very sweet server at the Eat’n Park in Cranberry split our order before she brought it to our table. I will have to say I missed the task of moving  things off of Linda’s plate and onto mine. It felt too orderly and separate when brought out to our table. There is something about the actual act of sharing that brings more satisfaction.  It’s messy, it’s a little embarrassing to be mooching off  someone’s plate, and it requires trust. After all, someday I might grab a piece of bacon, too.  However, like tearing off a piece of bread from a larger loaf during Communion as opposed to a tray of little pieces of bread, it has become a visual representation of a larger meaning.

These meetings began because Shirley Stevens thought we might have something to share with each other.  Shirley was right to the umpteenth degree. Linda and I have similar “stories” in our past – mine recent, hers a little more distant.  Something miraculous happens when two people who have experienced betrayal, family upheaval, joys and disappointments come together.  Mainly it means an endless banter broken up by tears and uproarious laughter, which inevitably leads to us being seated all alone in the back corner.  All of which can be messy – coffee out the nose, anyone? A little embarrassing – crying over a couple of pieces of sausages isn’t normal. And it requires a lot of trust to share the grime and the grit of life in the trenches.

In a nutshell, our meetings are more about sharing than anything else – our food, our lives, our hopes, our fears. The other day at Eat’n Park, Linda and I noticed two gray-haired women sharing hand sanitizer in the booth across from us.  I suggested that would be us in about 20 years, when we have given up our need to mask the gray in our own hair yet still appreciate sharing the important things in life with a friend.  I wonder if they ordered an extra plate, too.

And so it begins…

Fara and I have been meeting for coffee—well, coffee and breakfast, and/or cold drinks and lunch, and/or some hybrid of the two and dinner—weekly (or semi-weekly or semi-monthly) for a few years now.

Yesterday it dawned on Fara that we had enough material to go out on tour … a blog tour, that is. We’ve been to more Eat’n Parks and Panera Breads in the tristate area than any two middle-aged women writers we know. Might as well take that focused niche knowledge and put it to some good use, right?

And within two minutes we had brainstormed enough to start this blog. Sometimes I’m so proud of us I could just spit. Except that the waitresses at Eat’n Park wouldn’t like cleaning that up. It’s bad enough we sit in their booths so long that they’ve started measuring our visits with a calendar instead of a clock. Spitting on the table would add insult to injury.

We’ll be blogging about the food we eat, the coffee we drink, the restrooms we visit after all the coffee we drink, and of course, about the fascinating strangers we meet along the way. It’s like Thelma and Louise with a side of sausage instead of a car ride off a cliff. Much less dangerous. And, we hope, a lot funnier.

Enjoy the ride!