Travel Blessings & the Internet

What an amazing time to be alive. What amazing resources we have at our fingertips. What delights abound. Here I am -- on my way returning to Ohio from the whole New York extravaganza adventure tour....... stopping just outside of Philadelphia for lunch with some of my oldest & dearest friends -- that I'd never met. Yup. You heard me right. I'm meeting them for the first time. My oldest & dearest friends.

That may only make a modicum of sense if you've been diagnosed with Breast Cancer and are a member of BCO (breastcancer.org). BCO was my lifeline years back upon my first diagnosis. The chatroom function was alive 24/7 with support and encouragement, insight, experience and camaraderie. Over weeks that turned into months, it was fun to get to know these screen names. Here we are years later, several of them have had numerous lunches & get-togethers over the years. I'm the one meeting them, IRL. There's also a "newbie" and PatMom, that I'd met on an earlier eastern journey, so it was a terrific combination of old & new. Squeels of laughter, hilarious hugs and all the sorts of nonsense that earlier generations of back porch friends shared over generation past, we exchanged in that quaint restaurant. Marlegal, Held, Mouse, Faithie... we'd had numerous Friday night food fights together, so one linen table cloth luncheon was hardly a stretch. I wonder what on earth our waitress thought? Sorority sisters?? If that was her guess, she was pretty accurate. We're all card carrying members of the club nobody wants to join. The club made possible by the magic carpet ride of the world wide web. Amazing.