Fellowship

Yesterday afternoon we went to the SOJC 20th Anniversary Celebration at the Rosen Center in Orlando.  It was a great party, including free pictures, free wine as well as a cash bar, a silent auction, DJ for dancing, a plated dinner of delicious red snapper, and a lot of speeches.  It ran from 3-8 p.m.

What was really lovely was that we knew everyone at our table!  Some of the first events that we attended for SOJC were the kind of thing where we knew no one.  Everyone was introducing themselves to each other.  Not last night.  Nice.

We certainly did not know everyone who was in the room, but we knew about half.  I felt that was quite an accomplishment after being members for only two years.

It's a nice congregation, and we really love the young rabbi, his wife, and their two small children.  Still, Mark went home saying that he has not bonded with any of the men in the congregation.  There are only a few men that he even talks to at all.  He still misses the friendship and fellowship with his Mishkan Torah friends.  I miss those friends as well, both male and female, but I'm trying to form some new bonds with these ladies and these couples.  They are nice people, but they aren't our MT friends.  Maybe after 30 years...

It's hard to compare the bonds of a 35+ years friendship with people that you grew up with from age 25 to 60+ with people that you are meeting in your sixties who are also in that age group.  But we're trying.

This afternoon I will enjoy the fellowship of my neighbors as I play Mah Jongg in Maureen's house. I really love this.  I am blessed to have moved to this street where the ladies all get along and enjoy playing Mahj weekly whenever they are home.  I have heard some stories that not all neighbors and not all streets are this congenial.  This evening we are invited to dinner at another friends' house with a third couple that is down visiting from upstate NY.   We had met the NY couple up in Massachusetts when we used to vacation in Lenox, MA, and they also were there.  Then it turned out that they had been friends with the couple whose house we are going to for about 15 years! Small world! 

When you uproot yourself and move a thousand miles away, you hope for new friends, but it's not guaranteed.  In general, I think we are doing OK.  It's important to keep the social ties going as you age.  Every book about aging says that.  We're trying!

Now for the E and E report.  They CALLED us last night on FACETIME.  How cool!  We spoke to them face to face on our iPhones for 40 minutes!  It was 9 p.m. our time on Sunday night; it was 1 in the afternoon on Monday for them.  They were in a park with a view of downtown Sydney.  They used the Facetime feature on the phone to show us the park, the view, and some local birds nearby.  It was so much fun to talk to them and SEE them and know that they were on the bottom half of the planet on the opposite side of the world.  Technology today is amazing!  We truly live in an amazing world.

Yesterday after we spoke to them they got some lunch and then took an hour bus ride to go to a rugby game.  Then today (tomorrow our time) they are going to a zoo and ending up at the opera to see La Boheme.  That's the end of their trip.  They will fly home on Wednesday, arriving back in San Francisco BEFORE they ever left Sydney.  LOL!  I have never understood time travel stories.