Friends & Family: November 2002 Archives

A message to surfacehippy@yahoogroups.com on Mom's behalf. This is Raymond, Janet Lynda's son and I'm here to update you all on the on the latest crop of Belgian hippies. While one the phone with my mother she dictated as follows:

In her words:
Brenda now has shapely hips and walks like a runway model.
Donna is one of the most gorgeous divas that DeSmet has ever operated on and has a tennis match planned next week and will only be using crutches to be fair to the competition.
John is passing around his old femoral head prosthetic as a shot glass and acts like he's 19 again.
Tom is showing us all up in physical therapy. Maybe some needs to tell him he just had major hip surgery.
Lynda (Raymond's words) is overwhelmed to have her life back.
Dr. DeSmet, Jan & Jacqueline are even more fantastic than could be dreamed.

Randy (Lynda's husband) & the rest of the companion family members are all taking a much deserved break from the daily care of their hippy counterparts. They are parting like Ghent was a college town - enjoying fine French "clasical" cuisine, Belgian chocolate and good Belgian beer like Leffe Blonde. It was confused as "Laughing Blond", whereby Brenda sought a different choice. It seems she already had enough laughing blond as Mom was her hospital roommate for two days. ;-) Thank you, Raymond

"And she told two friends, and she told told two friends..." Because of the grape vine I was fortunate to have two blasts from the past send me their love and well-wishes recently: Carolyn Hickey now known as C-Lynn Vallone & Katherine Shepherdson (SP?) now know as Kathy Ambrose

Now I am happy that you two are both "Married w/Children" but did you have to give up on the beautiful first names you were both given in addition to your adoption of new last names? You know, I move away for a couple of years and the whole town goes nutty. Carolyn & Katherine are beautiful names. Use them every once in a while ya' wackos! :-)

I look forward to seeing you all again this Thanksgiving - including C-Lynn & Mike's Ethan, whom I have not yet met. PS: New photos of the kiddies would be nice, including those adorable Halloween costume pics.

Mandi & Evan came to NY this past weekend (Nov 1st - 3rd). We had a had a great time wondering around the East Village, comparing restaurants along Indian Row and playing tennis on the PS2. Like the young kids they are they drove up late Friday afternoon, leaving after work and getting in around 11:30 PM or so. Its amazing what 5 years will do to your concept of acceptable driving times. At 32, I guess I'm getting stuffy about certain things. We stayed up Friday night talking about the changes that were made to the apartment, discussing my diabetes regimen and chasing the cats.

Saturday, I woke them up with NY bagels with cream cheese & jelly, tomato slices, alfalfa sprouts, turkey, ham, apples, grapefruit & decaf coffee. They ate the bagels and drank the coffee. Such is life in the kitchen. By noon we had finally made it out to the East Village - taking the subway - a first for Evan (I think). We took them to a favorite store along St. Mark's place called "In the Woods". It has everything you'd ever want made of wood - dishes & utensils to toys & furniture. An added bonus is the crystal shop located in the back. I think it's a shared rent arrangement. Next we went for Indian food for lunch, went home for a nap, woke up and went for a Mexican dinner with plenty of margaritas. (All we did was eat, really.)

On Sunday, I woke them with scrambled eggs, potato patties, turkey kielbasa, veggie links, coffee and the fruit they ignored the day before. (I had wrapped it up and stored it in the fridge.) They ate everything, and wanted more. So they ate some of the croissants they had brought up with them but the again, ignored the fruit. You never can tell with this bunch. Afterward, we stayed local, perusing the (now) fashionable Smith Street. Mandi very much enjoyed the kitsch shops. The family's trying to convince her to sell items via consignment in stores like this. Go Mandi! Start sewing. After a briskly cold day they drove back to Baltimore. Come back soon.