Lunch With a Dear and Long-Time Friend

It was delightful to see Marilyn again, although pretty hairy getting there, as it was raining heavily on the way.  I still haven't gotten my windshield wipers fixed and I had to keep running them manually. However, I got there in plenty of time, a bit more than an hour.
We met at Mastoris, a restaurant in Bordentown well-known for its good food and huge portions.  Marilyn looks wonderful, with a new, shorter haircut, and she was nicely turned out in a dark paisley outfit. We both had a shrimp salad plate, much too much for one sitting, and a fine time catching up with each other.
To me, Marilyn--whom I've known almost since I started at Rider forty years ago--is a combination friend, sister, and daughter (she's in her late fifties). She suffered a terrible tragedy when her long-time fiancee died suddenly at 62 a few years ago.  She always seemed to me the epitome of sweet-natured goodness, so absolutely without guile or pretense that you have to love her.  At the same time, she's intelligent, uncritical of others, and a warm and caring person. She's a pianist and choir director, a graduate of Westminster Choir College before it was bought by Rider, and the supervisor of a good-sized department of information systems for the state of New Jersey.
We had a leisurely and much-enjoyed visit, then I drove home in what was now more sleet than rain, but without incident.