Hey, out there! I'm waiting for you. This is such a quiet Monday after a busy weekend. We met with friends from Lake Ridge - a beautiful place that was really hit hard by real estate fraud and flipping. Right now, it seems to be bouncing back to life. The terrain is lovely, and almost every house has been custom built to the owner's specification. How the flippers got there, I'll never know.

Anyway, we lived there for five years before family and age drew us back to the city.

We ate at S & D Oyster Bar, an old Dallas establishment that earns its great reputation. The oysters were great and the sides were excellent. But best of all was the meeting and greeting of friends. We all exclaimed that time had improved our looks, probably an exaggeration, but pleasant to hear. We caught up on all their gossip and certainly had some of our own.

Then yesterday, before the big game (which we didn't watch), we met family for breakfast at Corner Bakery. What a great place -busy, bright and friendly. Everyone around us was rushing home to watch the Super Bowl. I was rushing to get to the NYTimes puzzle - my favorite Sunday afternoon activity. I got most of it, but not the bands and the albums. The theme was quite clever and it took all my focus until tea time.

A friend, snowed in for a while in Virginia joined me for a cup of tea and talk by phone. That's what got me started blogging. It was such fun to just chat - even at a distance.