I was M.I.A. yesterday because I spent the day with a very old, very dear friend of mine, his wife, and their two kids. I've known C since I was about 10 years old. He was the first boy I ever had a crush on. He's from New Jersey; our families would cross paths during summer vacation every year at the Hilyard in Miami Beach. I eventually outgrew the crush, and the hotel has been gone for a few years (replaced by, what else?, condos!), but our friendship has survived both time and distance. They moved to South Florida about two years ago, but this is the first chance in that time we had finally been able to coordinate some time together.
We had lunch and hung out for a while, and it was great. I took a moment and reflected on how cool it was that our kids were playing together. What a difference from last week's reflective moment.
On a related note, the Sheraton Bal Harbour was demolished yesterday morning to make room for even more overpriced condos. The Sheraton holds a special place in my heart. It's part of those childhood memories of staying at the beach with family and friends. In the evenings, we'd hound my aunt to let us walk two blocks to the Sheraton at night-by ourselves!- with the other kids staying at the hotel (C and his family included) to play video games and buy candy and magazines from the gift shop. Most of the time we got to go, albeit with a chaperone.
It so sad that my children will never get to enjoy these places as we did, but I'm comforted in knowing I'm creating new memories for them to hold dear 20 years from now.
Posted by Amanda at November 19, 2007 10:44 AM | TrackBack