Act Your Age Grandma!

"Look up Donny, look up!" But he never stopped
cutting thecookie for  his chums, the birthday boys.

The studio was dark this weekend of reunion. My paints were put away to celebrate eight friendships that have lasted sixty years. All The-Grade-School-Chums-Who-Went-To-New-York-To-Look-For-Women-And-Came-Back-To-Marry-Hometown-Sweethearts when they were 20 turned 75 this year. We opened quite a few bottles of champagne and toasted our good fortune:  the joy of old friends, who knew each other when we were egotistical assholes, and yet, are still talking to one another.

 It was a weekend of constant chatter, comparing  physical maladies, discussing where to get the cheapest hearing aids,  remembering stupid things we did till we reached  the age of reason when everybody had been stomped on, humiliated and beaten into mellowness by life's hard knocks. We ate and drank like we were still twenty, then shared the Maalox and vowed never again to eat a giant chocolate chip cookie after fried squid. (I did say mellow out, NOT smarten up).

The Birthday Chocolate Chip Cookie. Sweet.

 A delightful addition to our celebration was a surprise drop in visit from my son, his son and Brutus, the frisky, two year old canine addition to the family, who fell immediately and seriously in love with Dick's wife and couldn't keep his paws off her. We finally slipped a little Scotch into his water so we could  share Zac's trip-of-a-lifetime to Alaska doing what young men can and old men wish they could--hiking, kayaking, mountain climbing, glacier exploring, sleeping in pup tents, relieving themselves in out houses and showering only when the group didn't make room around the campfire.

Zac's photographed adventure stole the show and had all of us wishing we were fifty nine years younger.

My clients never asked for commodes in the woods. I wonder why?
They're so minimal, so chic.

Call down for a pizza and extra towels.

Boys lazing in the sun before the big climb.

Their destination.

The ascent. 

My conquering hero.

 Come on down. Don't make us come up there and get you!

Woops! Too far . You're in the glacier now.
I told you we'd find the ice.

Do go into the light.

Looking back with satisfaction.

Row, row, row, our boats ...This is no gentle stream!

Home more men than boys.

Back to the same old, same old swim team practice.

Zac, five years older than my current portrait in progress.
It looks like I have a lifelong position as the Roth family's
official portrait painter.

Then it was our turn to show the lad our best strength.  We hiked out to eat, cock sure of  our ability to lift a fork and glass and find our way back to our lavish pup tents, on our own, in the dark, without a flashlight. Are we somethin' or what?

This morning, our gang just closed the weekend closing the delicatessen, our seventh restaurant, our seventh meal out . All of them consumed with great skill, laughter and camaraderie.  We didn't climb any mountains, explore the depths of a glacier or cross any open stretch of the Pacific, but we have trash bags full of champagne bottles and hearts full of gratitude for  lifelong friendships. Now, back to Florida, back to the studio, back to Cosco's, back to marketing, back to accounting, back to closing down a law practice, back to ho hum--

--with hugs and promises of getting together in February. If not, next year. Same time. Different hotel.

The Radisson made it clear, they preferred  a more refined, less rowdy crowd who acted their age.