Today I’m grateful for pasta sauce on my glasses.

11.29.2023

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So, I’m in New York City with my mom. We’re taking a Christmas in New York tour and to say we’re giddy with excitement would be an understatement. The tour officially begins tomorrow, but we arrived today, got settled in, and attended the tour’s welcome dinner tonight.

Dinner was at an authentic Italian restaurant in Manhattan. Oh my word! It was, quite probably, the best Italian meal I’ve ever had. The garlic bread was amazing, the salad was perfect, and the wine was flowing. We honestly could’ve stopped right there and been totally satisfied, but the servers just kept bringing dish after dish – spaghetti and meatballs, chicken marsala, shrimp alfredo, and chicken parmesan. Like I said, oh my word! Everything was delicious. We passed around dishes of pasta, family-style, with our fellow tour-takers, laughing and eating and drinking and then eating some more.

At one point I noticed that my glasses had a smudge on them. I took them off to wipe them off and laughed when I realized the smudge was actually not a smudge, but pasta sauce. I’m guessing some sauce had splattered as I was passing it around or dishing it up. Or maybe it happened as I was slurping in a spaghetti noodle. I don’t really know how it got there. But I do know that it’s a clear sign of a really good meal when you end up with pasta sauce on your glasses.

I’m still kind of pinching myself in disbelief that my mom and I are here and doing this. Yesterday she was having dinner in Iowa and I was having dinner in Arizona. I’m not sure what she had, but I had leftover chicken and some grapes that were about to go bad. Tonight was an upgrade in both food and in company, and I could not be more grateful.