Ladies Who Lunch

Many years ago I remember reading an article about a group of Society women in New York who daily met for lunch at classy upscale restaurants like the Stork Club, and one of them (already reed slim, according to the article) never ordered anything but Perrier and a sliced tomato, because she wanted to stay that way I guess. Anyway being younger and more critical I remember thinking at the time, "How silly! Can't they think of anything better to do?"

Now fast forward a few years and it suddenly occurred to me that I spend a lot of time lately going to lunch with my "lady" friends, too--three times last week to be exact. And what do we talk about?--only everything under the sun: our kids and grandkids, the price of gas, why in the world Congress can't get on the ball and do something, ANYTHING, God help us! Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

We don't solve anything, of course, but if you have a problem there's always a sympathetic ear to listen, and if something's really bothering you it's a good place to get it off your chest. My friends and I are not Society, with a capital S, and the restaurants we go to are varied and not particularly upscale, but it's lot of fun and we share a warm ambiance in just being together. Best of all there's no work involved like having people to dinner. That's lovely, too, but for gals of a certain age all that cooking and cleaning up afterwards has more or less lost its charm. We've done it, lo these many years, and now most of my friends and I agree that now it's somebody else's turn, mostly the kids', to do the honors. So we go out to lunch a couple of times a week, and heaven forbid, we'd ever dream of ordering just a Perrier and a tomato. We have a right jolly old time and therefore I guess (almost before I knew it), I've  become one of the "ladies who lunch" and I love it. Does that make me terribly provincial? I wonder.