Meeting a far-flung friend

A meeting of friends, acquainted via the internet, on a site called Swap-bot where people from all over the world take part in "swaps" of many sorts, from various crafts, to letters, to email questionnaires, etc. Jan, on the left is another Cape Codder but I met her on Swap-bot before I moved here. I'm in the middle and Donna is on the right. Donna and her "guy", Charlie, did a leaf peeping trip through spectacular upstate NY and New England and swung down to  Cape Cod specically to meet Jan and me.  Jan's husband, Paul, and Charlie are not in the photo. I find it interesting that we all chose black and B&W clothes. And I can tell you that, noting that I am about 15 years older than they are, nevertheless, I'm headed to a salon this coming week for a short hair cut and a (possibly hopeless) search for looking a little bit younger. 

As Donna observed a few times, it's remarkable how much we already knew about each other because one segment of Swap-bot is sort of chat room for women over 50 and we have all posted about personal events and backgrounds (Donna and Jan both did count-downs to their retirements). We had a good dinner and an even better talk that went past the closing hour of the restaurant. The internet has brought us together in a happy way -- a wonderful friendship for Jan and I and a very memorable vacation for Donna and Charlie ... plus the absolutely necessary experience for Donna and Charlies of learning how to eat a Maine lobster.

A delicious autumn

It's been a delicious past few weeks. We had a warm and sunny September. Rachel brought me tomatos from a farm where she gets fresh veggies and also from her own tomato plants.  Plus I have a new neighbor (since spring) who says he has ADHD and must stay busy.  He's tending many flowers around his patio and planted several tomatoes.  At six some mornings he could be seen watering my solo hanging flower (name was never discovered), which grew abundantly with his attention. He has been giving me tomatoes too and today it was four little green ones.  I hope they'll ripen because I'm not of the southern type who liked Fried Green Tomatoes.

It's been too many years to count since I've had tomatoes that are actually flavorful and sweet. These have been, a memory from what seems a very  long time ago, actually at least 20 years.  I've also had, from the normal grocery store, very good Italian black plums -- actually ripe and sweet -- and lately some very flavorful pears. Tasteless tomatoes were so blah I have not been buying them for a couple of years.  And I positively will not buy rock-hard little peaches of plums or apricots.  I think there are people who actually do not know what a truly field-ripe tomato -- or strawberry for that  matter -- actually tastes like. 

Apparently many city born and bred young people don't actually know where milk or eggs come from. -- cartons!! And they have no idea what really fresh fruit tastes like.  I know and I've enjoyed it enormously the last few weeks.