The Long Goodbye

I don't think I have read Raymond Chandler's book The Long Goodbye but I keep thinking of that title as a good one for our life this last month.

I have had  breakfast or lunch or coffee with five different friends this month.  I need my women friends and I hope I find new ones.

 We have taken friends out for dinner twice and others have taken us out five times.  That meant two trips to Villa Macri, one each to Carmela's, The Emporium, Cafe Navarre, LaSalle Grille, and a new restaurant for us--Jesus Tequila Bar and Grill.

We met cousins for lunch at Russ's in Wyoming, Michigan where 14 of us gathered from Northern Michigan, Ontario, and the greater Grand Rapids area.  We had coffee and dinner with Jim's sisters and their spouses on that same day.

Our church friends hosted a wonderful open house at the Baxter-Banga residence where we shared many memories and hugs.



For Jim and me, that was a lot of sociability in one month! And a lot of good eating!

This week begins a new kind of sociability.  We had dinner at Jeff and Susan's last night.  Tomorrow we hope to go to an outdoor jazz concert to hear grandson Michael play and then on the 4th we will join Laura and Michael and their family in Ocean Grove.  Dan and Alex plan to come too--and maybe even the Princeton VKs.  We hoped to see our family more and this week we are doing just that! And that is the joy of this move.