Isn't it nice when things turn out better than you thought?

Nothing ever goes smoothly with my friend Mindy. Thursday and Friday were the perfect example.

Weeks ago -- on December 5, to be exact -- Mindy and John and I agreed we would get together for the holidays on Friday, December 30. 1:00 at a restaurant/bar John and I favor called Rudy's. Yea!

Suddenly, Thursday, Mindy couldn't make it at 1:00. Could we make it 4:00?

John never checks his phone when he's with people -- and I love that about him -- so he didn't get her message until late Thursday and there was much, much drama. Where is he? Then, when he said he couldn't roll it back because he has a standing date to go to Zoo Lights with his cousins every December 30, another flurry of emails and texts: Can we get together in January? What about February?

FEBRUARY? Why book a date that far out when we know Mindy will change it anyway? The stress of meeting up with this woman is wearying. As I was moving important dates from my 2016 calendar to my 2017, I noticed three times I'd penciled "Mindy" in -- of course I used pencil -- and three times she cancelled.

After much agita and stress, she and I met Friday at 3:45. On the way into the restaurant, I passed to twentysomething women shivering in the cold, waiting for their friends. One was talking animatedly about her new, Printer's Row apartment. Excited about their prospects for the new year in the big city, just like Mindy and I once were. It was a sweet moment for me.


Of course we had the "end of the world as we know it" conversation everyone wants to have with me about Trump, but once we dispensed with that we had a lovely time.

I ate too much, drank too much, and laughed a lot. Which made her gift all the sweeter. She gave me a vertical pendant with the word LAUGH. She says that looking back over the years, the times she's laughed the longest and hardest, she's been with me.

I gave her a brooch from the Metropolitan Opera gift shop. It was the charity chosen to honor her mother in lieu of flowers when the lady passed, and I thought this gave Mindy a way to wear her mother over her heart. This made her happy, which made me happy.

I consider last night my New Year's celebration, and it ended up being a nice one.