Meeting our first blog friend

I received an e-mail a couple of weeks ago from an excellent writer and my blog friend Lisa Wines. She authors "Politics after 50" and "OMyWord", two great blogs that she pens from her apartment on the right bank of the Seine River in Paris.

She was coming back to America, Phoenix in fact, and wanted to know if I would like to get together. My answer was: Abso - fricking - lutely! I have lived my life vicariously through her exploits in Paris and we both have enjoyed the other's take on politics and life on our blogs. I was anxious to meet my first blog friend face to face.

Vicki and I met her at our local Starbucks and I spent the entire time grilling the poor woman about life in Paris, customs, language, culture, business, hobbies, sports and fifty thousand other questions about life in an exciting foreign country's capitol. I even managed to learn two, count em, two, French words. The first is "arondissment" which is means district or something to that effect. Each section of Paris is numbered and the sections resemble the parts of a spiral sea shell. It is pronounced "A- Ron- Dis-Mon".

The second word was "Boulangerie." This is a bread shop. Each district has several, and each day after work Parisians line up to get there bread before going home for the evening meal. This one is pronounced Boo - lingerie. Like in what they sell at Victoria's secret

Anyway... So much time was spent in getting to know each other that before we knew it, it was close to dinner time. Lisa followed us back to our place just a few blocks from the Starbucks. We had intended to grill, but after discussing it with our guest, we settled on Chinese takeout. Lisa explained that Chinese was just too different in Paris. As luck would have it, we have an excellent Chinese food establishment close by.

After gorging ourselves on egg rolls, pot stickers, chicken - both orange and cashew, we moved out to the patio. There we continued the conversation, smoked (Lisa a few cigarettes and me a good cigar), imbibed a few adult beverages and exchanged political views, thoughts and impressions. Of course I asked more questions about life in Paris. Both Vicki and I were fascinated by the lifestyle experienced by Lisa.

Sometime during the evening I dug out my guitar and learned that Lisa has a great Blues voice. It's hard to not like a chick that knows the blues.

So... my first experience meeting a blog friend turned out to be pretty cool.

Hopefully we'll get to see her one more time before she heads back to Paris. I'd like to hear her sing a couple more blues songs while I lay down a jam. Also, there's still some whiskey left at my house and we should probably work on that too.

Life is a funny, beautiful and wondrous thing; so is meeting your first blog friend in person.

The Daily Husband