Monkeyrotica, the kids, and I met up with our friend Lisa on Saturday at the National Building Museum. I promised I wouldn't take any pics from our visit—although she had an lovely new 'do, the humid day wrecked her hair and she couldn't transport any product on her flight from Detriot (shaking fist at airline restrictions!). We've known Lisa since 1998; when Monkey and I moved into our first house as newlyweds and first-time homebuyers, Lisa lived just across 13th Street. We miss having a neighbor like her dearly! I can say with no reservations that she was our absolute favorite neighbor from the five years we lived on that block. Lisa had regular house parties and loves to cook (and experiment with cooking) as much as Mr. Monkey—we would visit just to try out foods she was testing! Also, Lisa and I would have drop-in craft nights. She can knit like nobody else I know and we'd hang out, working on our projects (I was embroidering or making jewelry). We'd also just call and walk the few blocks to the nightclub district, go to a bar for drinks or club to dance or see a show. We know nobody in our current hood who'd be up for any of that. It was so great to live near someone with similar interests; it was a bit of a shocker for me to find out that it was so special—we lost that experience entirely when we relocated to the burbs. In 2003, Lisa married Joe and in two short years, they had two kids: Lucy & Jack (Jack and Dash are one month apart in age), and moved to Alabama, then Detroit in 2007.
I think this was the first time we saw Lisa in person since 2005! We've kept in touch via email, photos, Facebook, and occasional phone calls, so it was only the kids who felt like they were visiting with a stranger. It was a too-short visit. We were going to meet at the kite festival, but with the rain, no kites! The building museum seemed like a good alternate destination, but not necessarily for catching up—it was packed with tourists, performers and cherry blossom family activities. Rosie adored watching ballet dancers, Dash took in the sights, and we moved on to a quieter spot, the Channel Inn bar (or whatever the restaurant's called these days). We learned about what Joe (good luck with your book!), Lucy (budding ballerina), and Jack (active little guy) are up to these days, and Lisa got a big dose of Rosie and Dash.
Lisa, I miss you and your family! I hope we can see you in Detroit without another four years in between visits!
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23 hours ago
Valkyrie and I were there too! But it was such a madhouse, I'm not surprised we didn't run into each other. Did y'all get there in time to see the drum corps outside? They were *awesome*, Valkyrie was dancing up a storm.
ReplyDeleteOh! I wish we had seen you! Rosie's ballet class ends at 2, so we rushed to arrive at 3, just in time to see some ballet dancing (appropriate, hm?). After we found Lisa, we left. It looked pretty fabulous for the 30 minutes or so that we saw.
ReplyDeleteisn't it great when you can get together after so long and it's as if no time at all had passed?
ReplyDeleteXUP, exactly right!! It felt like she had just been away a few weeks—almost ;-). Even though Lisa never met Dash (her move date was while I was still in the hospital recovering from his birth), she said she felt like she knew him from reading my blog and seeing all the photos.
ReplyDeleteHi, Lisa, if you're reading now!