Together Again

After a 5 year hiatus, I’m in Atlanta at a reunion with my high school girlfriends. We meet at Kathy’s house north of Atlanta. Sitting and talking is the agenda for the weekend, with 1 dinner out.

In previous years, we who flew in, took Marta to the Avondale station to meet our friends. Next stop was the Dekalb Farmers Market, actually a big warehouse-sized grocery store. Many unusual vegetables, lovely fish and meat, plus a great bakery. A whole wall of spices in large quantities. We would start with lunch in the cafeteria, then bought food for the weekend. 

Now the cafeteria is closed, a causality of COVID, so we stopped at Chat Patti, a favorite Indian restaurant of Mickie. I knew none of the dishes, so looking at the pictures on the wall, I ordered Behl Puri. According to the menu (which I read after I ordered), it is an appetizer made of puffed rice, crumbled crunchy puri, onions, cilantro, and chutney tossed together with pomegranate seeds, served cold. An odd dish but interesting.

As expected, we spent the weekend catching up on the last five years, even though we had Zoomed some. It just seems more real in person. We are all healthy with an odd knee ready to be replaced and higher blood pressure or cholesterol than before. Many wrinkles. Our partners are in the same boats. Older, maybe wiser.

And as usual, the weekend sped by, seeming to end before we even started. We did not go out to eat, but we did take a short walk to the Chattahoochee River. The small birds there, and the wrens, titmouse, nuthatches, chickadees, bluebirds, etc in Kathy’s backyard make me want to spend time (live?) in a bird friendly environment. In the meantime, will the mealy worm feeder I ordered lure the bluebirds up in my oak tree down to my yard? 

I made an agreement to come birding with Jane, maybe next spring when she returns to North Carolina. Killing the proverbial 2 birds with 1 trip, I could also visit Sue who lives up there full time. Mary is still back and forth to Arizona since she has 2 houses and her warehouse to clean out before they go on the market. January may be her target to be west full time. Should our Last Gasp tour consider buying a camper and seeing the southern USA, ending up in California? I will consider and present the idea to Grant.

Sunday, Sue and Jane drove home, taking Mickie who is meeting up with her roommate from junior year abroad in Germany 50 years ago. Kathy had to take the long way around to the airport because downtown Atlanta was packed with political rallies and a big soccer game. It took a little longer but we got to see the U S Air Force Thunderbirds fighter planes from the Atlanta Air Show doing acrobatics as we drove.

Our flights weren’t until 6:00. Mary and I ate dinner while Delta changed our gates back and forth. She was scheduled to leave from T4; I was at A12. Then I was at T4, and she was at A12. In between, I was assigned T1. Eventually, Delta settled. Who knows.

 I had offered to give up my seat for $400 plus any difference in price between my first class ticket and wherever level of seat I ended up. The money would have been fun, but I was relieved I wasn’t called on to wait for the next flight. Nice to see my friends, nice to see Grant and sleep in my own bed.