The above picture is from the days when the old "Whine and Dine" meetup group still existed. It's been a long time since then, and I still enjoy eating out whenever I can - especially with a friend or two. Over the past two days, I've had two separate lunches with two separate friends and wish it could be more often.
- - - - - -
My first lunch was with my friend,CCS, from the census. Each month, we try to get together and catch up on things. This month, I got to talk about my trip to Bermuda with RQS and she got to talk about a family reunion for Passover. Although we chatted about more things (current politics always seems to come up these days), our focus was mostly on our trips and not the BS going on in the outside world.
Next up was my friend, SJM, from the imaging firm. Like me, she's glad to be out of the place, as it was a stifling place to spend 8 hours each day. I brought her up to date with my travels, and she talked about her job search, her son's performance in college, and other things a little too personal to cover here. As expected, talk of the Orange Snowflake came up. I said that I would love to see a revival of "Our American Cousin" take place at Ford's Theater, with the same Ad-Hoc ending.
- - - - - -
A common feature with both friends is that I would likely have never developed a friendship with these two ladies had I been presenting as Mario instead of as Marian. Over time, I'd like to be able to leave as much of Mario behind and live as much of my life as Marian as possible. At my age, I can deal with males trying to talk down to me ("mansplaining", among other things).
