A Grandma's Morning

Yesterday I had a "grandma's morning." I am not the only American-born grandma (savta) in Israel, in case you thought I was. Over the years I have gotten to know about six or seven. A few of us have all of our kids and grandkids living in the USA, and a few (the lucky ones) have some or all of their kids and grandkids living here, where they can see them frequently. One of my grandma friends, B, has moved in with her resident daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters. They all moved to the "country" up in the beautiful Galil, near Safed (Tsfat), about two years ago, and since then I hardly get to see her. Yesterday she was in Tel Aviv and we had coffee together in my neighborhood, and then taxied over to our mutual friend R's neighborhood for lunch. R. has a new dog, a toy poodle, and didn't want to go far from home, so there we sat in a cafe, three elderly ladies, one with a poodle on her lap, exchanging photos of our grandchildren, talking about medical problems, face lifts, wrinkle-concealing makeup, physiotherapy, recent and planned trips, infertility, blogs, webchats, and having an absolutely delicious time. I suggested we take up mah jong, to make the picture complete. Dolce far niente!