Wine... and the stars align!

NR and I went out to a lovely wine bar last night, "Wined Up," which is the upstairs of "Punch." (Sorry, I can't seem to link to Wined Up directly, but there's a link on the Punch site's navigation.) It's been a couple of weeks since I've chatted with Nancy, and I was catching her up on things going on in my life, the most exciting and interesting of which is that I recently tracked down some friends of mine that I had fallen out of touch with over fifteen years ago, my friends Paul-Jacques and Anita.

I met Paul-Jacques back in college when he came from Paris to study at Hunter College. Anita, his girlfriend, followed him over and they lived with me (on and off) for the duration of the couple's stay in NYC. For the next decade we stayed in close contact and visited each other often. I have the most amazing stash of memories from my visits to France (a birthday party for PJ in Les Tuileries, a trip to see Anita's grand-maman in the Loire Valley). I stopped through Paris to see them on my way to meet my husband at his Tuscan home the summer I was married (this photo was taken by Anita while we were waiting for my train to Florence. Paul-Jacques is wearing the Edie and Andy shirt I bought him in New York), and they drove under the Alps to visit me at Casa Rotelli two summers later. At some point they relocated to Montreal and that is where I last saw them. My son was a toddler and Anita was pregnant with her first. After they had a second son, they returned to France -- this time settling in Marseille -- and that is when I lost track of them.

Last month, I finally found Anita through Google and over the last two weeks have been corresponding with her and Paul-Jacques (they are not married anymore) and planning to visit Paris at the end of June. I am SO HAPPY that I've found my friends again! In his most recent email to me, Paul Jacques mentioned that he would be coming to NYC in August and would like to visit with me and also Joshua Hakimi, another one of our Hunter classmates and a dear friend of Paul-Jacques. I hadn't thought about Josh at all since college. He had gone to live in Prague right after school and we were never as close to each other as each of us was to Paul Jacques. In my response to PJ's letter I asked about Josh -- where is he now, what is he doing?

I sent that note on Wednesday night. My question was answered last night when the Wine Director for Punch/Wined Up came over to ask us if we wanted help selecting a wine. It was Joshua Hakimi!