Thursday, January 04, 2007
The Joys of Old Friends
....and seeing them after far too long a time...we saw Rick Rose and Amanda Aldridge last night,(Wednesday the 3rd) for dinner at Joe Allen's, and it shocked me to feel what I felt when I saw them. I did not expect to feel so tender and happy when I saw them standing in Joe's foyer waiting for us, and the moment Amanda hugged me, I felt like crying! This I did not expect, honestly...and when Rick hugged, it felt like Peter and I had been away far too long from our Barter home! I did not expect to feel this way.
That being said: we had a perfectly marvelous dinner of juicy steaks and much-needed catch-up conversation until they had to go off to see GREY GARDENS...we see them again tonight...for dinner at least...maybe a show...and of course more talk and talk and talk....
AND SO WE DID.....
This morning is Friday, January 5th, so I am combining a couple of days of writing into one blog, since I have to run off to the hairdressers in a few minutes, and I want to rhapsodize yet more about the joys of seeing our dear friends Rick and Amanda more last night....Peter, unable to join us for the first part of the evening, caught up with us after the play we saw at a 45th Street place called Connell's for drinks and food...we were out til 1 AM with them which, for us, is a rare thing to do...we usually are such homebodies lately. But I could tell : none of us wanted to part from the other three!!
Anyway, in brief: I met Rick and Amanda at the Edison Hotel Coffee Shop (a favorite haunt of all of us) and we ate a satisfyingly Edison Coffee Shop "homestyle" meal...quickly too, with much crowded conversation, as ever...we never seem to fit it all in, we have so much to say to each other...conversations lag out of sheer exhaustion, nothing more, we find each other so genuinely interesting, and it has been a long time since we have shared conversation space....so we talked and talked and ate and ate, making our 8:00 curtain over on 45th Street in good time.We saw a wonderful new David Hare play called THE VERTICAL HOUR, starring a terrific Julliane Moore and the fine Brit actor Bill Nighy...a terrific and compellingly written play acted by good good actors...it's been a while since I have allowed myself that...and the three of us enjoyed it truly. I need to see more plays. Hell, I need to see more live theater in general...odd how we have avoided that over the past year...though, thanks to some tix given us by our neighbor Nancy Richards, we are going to see SPRING AWAKENING next Monday, co-incidentally on Peter's birthday! That'll be fun...the new hit musical...
So, there we were, the four of us, sitting late at night, as we so often did in Abingdon, over drinks and food, hashing out all the problems of the known world, and it felt so good. The Barter is a place that has engaged the four of us in intimate and important ways in our lives, and, granted, Rick and Amanda's "mission" there, over the past years, has been the focus of two lives well lived, as they contribute profoundly to the life and growth of an entire region of this country...but even though Peter and I have only spent a few years there with them ,so far (dare i add?), the intersection of our experiences at Barter has yielded major crossroads in our lives...it helped to shape both Peter and me...and the love we feel for Rick and Amanda, is the love, not only for dear friends, but for mentors and valued colleagues: this is a powerful combination....
That being said: we had a perfectly marvelous dinner of juicy steaks and much-needed catch-up conversation until they had to go off to see GREY GARDENS...we see them again tonight...for dinner at least...maybe a show...and of course more talk and talk and talk....
AND SO WE DID.....
This morning is Friday, January 5th, so I am combining a couple of days of writing into one blog, since I have to run off to the hairdressers in a few minutes, and I want to rhapsodize yet more about the joys of seeing our dear friends Rick and Amanda more last night....Peter, unable to join us for the first part of the evening, caught up with us after the play we saw at a 45th Street place called Connell's for drinks and food...we were out til 1 AM with them which, for us, is a rare thing to do...we usually are such homebodies lately. But I could tell : none of us wanted to part from the other three!!
Anyway, in brief: I met Rick and Amanda at the Edison Hotel Coffee Shop (a favorite haunt of all of us) and we ate a satisfyingly Edison Coffee Shop "homestyle" meal...quickly too, with much crowded conversation, as ever...we never seem to fit it all in, we have so much to say to each other...conversations lag out of sheer exhaustion, nothing more, we find each other so genuinely interesting, and it has been a long time since we have shared conversation space....so we talked and talked and ate and ate, making our 8:00 curtain over on 45th Street in good time.We saw a wonderful new David Hare play called THE VERTICAL HOUR, starring a terrific Julliane Moore and the fine Brit actor Bill Nighy...a terrific and compellingly written play acted by good good actors...it's been a while since I have allowed myself that...and the three of us enjoyed it truly. I need to see more plays. Hell, I need to see more live theater in general...odd how we have avoided that over the past year...though, thanks to some tix given us by our neighbor Nancy Richards, we are going to see SPRING AWAKENING next Monday, co-incidentally on Peter's birthday! That'll be fun...the new hit musical...
So, there we were, the four of us, sitting late at night, as we so often did in Abingdon, over drinks and food, hashing out all the problems of the known world, and it felt so good. The Barter is a place that has engaged the four of us in intimate and important ways in our lives, and, granted, Rick and Amanda's "mission" there, over the past years, has been the focus of two lives well lived, as they contribute profoundly to the life and growth of an entire region of this country...but even though Peter and I have only spent a few years there with them ,so far (dare i add?), the intersection of our experiences at Barter has yielded major crossroads in our lives...it helped to shape both Peter and me...and the love we feel for Rick and Amanda, is the love, not only for dear friends, but for mentors and valued colleagues: this is a powerful combination....
Labels: Adventures with Friends
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