For somebody who is not particularly social, I have gone out to eat the last three meals in a row–and enjoyed everyone of them. It began yesterday when I met Leslie and Meghan for lunch at a diner. I ate a huge portabella mushroom, cheese and veggie hoagie with caesar salad.

My first memory of Leslie is when she showed up in the Math Lab as a freshman who had just arrived from China and was misplaced by the guidance department into the wrong math class (which happened much more than you can imagine; one of my jobs as lead teacher was trying to assure that ESL students were placed properly rather than waste their first year or two of math). She became one of my finest independent study students ever, and is now a high school math teacher (apparently I did something right!).

Meghan was part of an AP Calc class whose boys who spent more time in the math lab than boys usually do, including Kevin, Vincent, Winston, Andrew and Tony. I have stayed in touch with several of them over the years.

When I got home, Jean and I went out for supper with Marilyn & Frank prior to our occasional Tuesday night free movie with them. We ate at a pizzeria where we all split a large salad, eggplant parm casserole, chicken parm casserole, and a spinach strromboli. Then we went to see The Help, which was a very good movie (based on a popular book which Jean read and enjoyed).

This morning Jean and I met Nancy at IHOP for breakfast. I had scrambled eggs with 2 sausage links and 2 pancakes. We mostly chatted about school and all the changes/troubles taking place there. These conversations always remind both of us that we made the right decision to retire.

This afternoon I am meeting Monisha at Barnes & Noble in Parsippany–but fortunately not for lunch. I have not seen Monisha in a long time, nor have we chatted much recently either, so I am glad to be getting together with her.