My BFF Sandi and I first met in summer school in 1963 … and she’ll be here on Friday!

This is something new for me … I’m lying on the chaise in the family room with my MacBook Pro balanced on my stomach. Wondering why? Because I was too fucking uncomfortable this morning to sit on the sofa!

The skin on the back of my thighs feels like a third-degree burn today, and the pain in my left foot defies description. In a word: ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. (Okay, sue me. Two words.) However, shortly after I hauled myself back to the chaise I had a brainstorm. Taking into consideration all of my physical complaints, the most comfortable seating for me in the entire house is actually the sturdy chair at my desk in the study. So I asked Sam, why don’t we move that chair into the family room now and then, and I’ll find a rolling tray table on Amazon that I can use as a portable desk. PROBLEM SOLVED! Therefore I just ordered myself the following fantastic easy-to-assemble (according to more than 1,750 user reviews!) hospital-quality adjustable table:

I don’t know why it took me so long to order one of these. Jesus.

There were several other similar and slightly cheaper products that I disqualified due to unhappy customer experiences regarding lousy assembly instructions, missing hardware, overall instability of the unit and cheesy casters that didn’t work, so I decided to spend an extra $15 for a tray table with stellar reviews and five-minute assembly. (I did this mainly to protect Sam’s emotional health and well-being. He’ll thank me later.)

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ONLY THREE MORE DAYS TO GO! My best friend Sandi will be here Friday for a three-day visit, and I’m so excited I think my head will explode! We first met in summer school — Mr. Smith’s typing class — in 1963, right before we started seventh grade. Sandi and I were inseparable, and in the years that followed we went babysitting together, took the “el” to the beach together, got sunburns together, talked about boys, sat together in classes in junior high and high school, went to Hebrew school together, freaked out about the Beatles together, traded Beatles cards in seventh grade science class and rode our bikes all over Skokie (and tarnation) on Saturdays … especially to her Aunt Tilly’s house for free cookies.

Old Orchard Junior High after it was blown apart by a tornado in May 1965.

Incidentally, the above photo shows a picture of my junior high school in May 1965 — two weeks before my graduation from eighth grade — after it was decimated by a monster tornado. We were all inside at the time!

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Sandi and I have a lifetime of history, and I can’t wait for her to meet Sam and spend time with us here in Texas. Plus we’re going to eat a lot, mostly Thai and Chinese. So that’s good, too!

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I think I need to put my feet up now. Thank you for reading this!