End of an Era

(Sofia, Sarah, Hannah, Mary and Rebecca, l-r, on our *last* Friday night dinner at Starfish)

We rarely realize the last time we do something. For example, when the girls were little and crawled into bed with us in the middle of the night, it was always a sweet disruption, then one day they stopped doing that. I remember when Sofia used to "make" me tuck her in bed every night, and then one day she just stopped asking, I miss that! We don't realize it's the end of an era until it's long over. I guess I'm getting to an age where melancholy for how-things-used-to-be starts creeping in...

Here's the latest thing that's disappeared from our life. Since the begining of the school year we have had a fixed date at Starfish Restaurant every Friday evening. "We" is an assortment of families living in Oak Cliff whose children go to Harry Stone or Townview. Whoever showed up was meant to be there that night. We've celebrated birthdays, traded summer stories, made plans and laughed a whole lot. The food was good, with wonderful sweet potato fries, awesome desserts and a byob policy that suited us perfectly. We were pretty much regulars and thought we had started a tradition that would last forever...and then Starfish closed...WHAT? Not wanting to let go, we went to Vitto's last Friday. We're going to have to come up with some sort of plan because we can't stop getting together...it's the end of the Starfish era and the begining of....