Bocce Ball

I took my sister to the park the other day. She is having a very difficult time, so I thought that a walk in the park would do her good. It was a very nice day for November - warm, fresh, and sunny. We went off the path and were walking among the trees when a red ball the size of a small canteloupe rolled in front of my feet. I turned to look in the direction of where the ball had come from and saw a group of people at a small distance, waving enthusiastically and shouting instructions.

Instead of throwing the ball back to them, I was to put it beside a smaller white ball that was also a few steps away from me. I carefully placed the red ball beside the white one and my sister and I were about to move on when the whole group caught up to us. There were six of them, five guys and a girl, aged somewhere between 25 to 35. Next thing I knew my sister and I were playing bocce ball with them. For the first time in our lives. We've been living by this park for fifteen years and it never occurred to us to spend a Saturday afternoon in this way.

Turns out it's a lot of fun. Especially when you are surrounded by people that we met. They were having a ball, literally. They seemed to know each other very well, possibly having gone to university together. Only one person from the group was living in Toronto - all the others had come or flown in for the weekend from as far as Peterborough, Ottawa, and even Vancouver. Open, friendly faces, easy laughter, easy conversation, elegant urban attire - in other words my sister and I had accidentally walked into a real life episode of "Friends". What do you do when this happens?
I invited them all to a dance party I am throwing in December. Then my sister and I went on our way.

I am really itching to throw in a combination of  a "life is a walk in a park" and "when life throws you a curve ball" cliches, but I will restrain myself. I just wanted to record this so that I can go back later and know that this actually happened.