OLD FRIEND NEW FRIEND

Mostly sunny with temperatures rising towards the upper 50s. Winds light and variable.

My daughter left this morning for CT at about 7:30 AM. I got a text from her at 9:30 that she was at work. Two hours, not bad.

When I was growing up we lived on the same block of the city with a family who had three girls. We weren't too close and they went to a different school. My family moved away from that residence when I was in college so lost track of the girls. After my husband and I married we bought a cute two family house on that same block where I grew up and made it into a one family. I loved it there. We sold it when my daughter was three and now that area isn't so nice. But anyway, after my husband and I had lived in the city house for a bit a single mother with a son the same age as my daughter moved into a flat across the street, this single mother was one of the girls that I remembered from growing up. We rekindled our friendship. She was a single mother so she worked everyday and her son went to day care. But we spent a good deal of time for a few years just chatting while the kids played. She worked at the university in the city we lived. After my husband and I sold the house in the city I lost contact with her. When my daughter started school full time I looked for a part time job working the hours she was in school so I could still drop her off at school and pick her up when her day was done. I found a job at the university. I vaguely remembered that my friend worked there but I wasn't sure if she was still there and what department she worked in. The added a physical fitness center to the building I worked in and they gave the receptionist job to one of the employees of the physics department. Guess who that was, yes, my old friend. When I was walking through the fitness center one day right after it opened I was shocked to see her at the reception desk. Needless to say we rekindled our friendship again and we had a lot to catch up on, her son was grown and my daughter was actually attending school at that same university. She took my daughter under her wings and helped her a lot making her way through the complicated stuff that goes along with being a freshmen at a large university. She helped her get a work study job in the fitness center and became her second mom. She even came to commencement with me to cheer my daughter across the stage. After my daughter graduated I wanted to find a job with less hours and as I told the story before, I took a job in the nursing home where my father was living. Again, my friend and I lost contact. I was going through the admissions for the nursing home yesterday and there was my friend's mother's name. I quickly called her and she said she was just looking for the number at the nursing home to contact me and said that they just found out she was coming here. I assured her that her mother was going to be very well taken are of here. I just now saw her when she came to visit. Now we have to catch up again.

Talked to my daughter tonight from CT. She is in her hotel room. She said the day was good and that she was going to unpack and make herself at home because it will be her home for the next seven days.