Salade Niçoise

A week ago the phone rang and a voice from the past said he hoped we were still willing to  'put up with them' on Sunday. 'Of course', said I…'we'd love to see you.' Times and plans established, I said, 'we'll need your address', and he said, 'our  address, we need your address.' I deftly covered my confusion, graciously gave him our address and went immediately to wake up OilMan from his afternoon nap to find out what he knew that he had failed to share with me.

Once roused, OilMan admitted that he had invited our old friends Tom and Sandy for an afternoon hike …I added early dinner to the invitation to cover my general state of confusion.  OilMan just forgot to tell me that he and Tom had planned to finalize plans after our vacation. OilMan worked with Tom and they traveled together to Japan, India, Egypt, Iran and other exotic lands in the name of 'big oil'. We traveled as a foursome to Canada where we visited the famous (in British Columbia, anyway) Burgess Shale because Sandy is a geologist.. But that is another story.

It has been awhile since we saw them last as we both made major moves, and we had a lot of catching up to do. I'm still supposed to be on the couch with my leg up, so I passed on the hike, but wound up on my feet a lot anyway  as I did my cobweb/vacuum/mop rounds, cleaned the bathroom, made some bruschetta, and a salad niçoise. I was putting the final touches on the salad, with potatoes (even the purple ones) tomatoes and green beans from our garden, when the hikers returned.

We had a very pleasant time together. The mark of old friendships is the fact that we can pick up where we left off without missing a beat….

Haven't missed too many beats in the Olympics this evening either…just watched Wayde Van Niekirk  of South Africa win the  400 meter run. His coach, a 75 year old grandmother was in Rio to watch him get the world record from lane 8…never been done before. What a story.