My Dinner With Marsha.

Courtesy of Facebook, I reconnected with another old friend, Marsha. She and her husband, John, were in town from New York for a few days and hosted a dinner party at this great little Italian restaurant in Toluca Lake I used to eat at a lot when I worked at Disney. (Prosecco's on Riverside Drive if you're local.)

Marsha is an actress. I met her a million years ago in 1977 when she and I did Fiddler on the Roof with the very talented but personally awful Theodore Bikel up in San Jose. I played the eldest daughter. Marsha, in spite of being slightly older than me, played my younger sister - the one who falls in love with an idealist and chooses to follow him to the abyss to freeze her butt off in some hovel, in poverty, in Siberia - all for love (I would love to see that sequel!) But this isn't about Fiddler. This is about dinner.

Marsha is extremely talented. Acts, sings dances - she's got the full package. Plus she's pretty smart. PLUS she understands, pursues, and enjoys the evidence of her own personal growth which she has always taken very seriously, unlike, say, me who is all for personal growth so long as it doesn't require a lot of self examination. And I think by nature, it does. So there you go. Anyway, she's very impressive.

It had been about 15 years since I last saw Marsha. I found her on Facebook about a year ago. Her photo looked like it must be very old because she still looked about 35 and assuming that she was still slightly older than me, that youthful look was impossible (unless of course there had been airbrushing - which was entirely possible) . Imagine my horror as I walked into the restaurant - with my glasses on - and saw Marsha, now at least 15 years younger than I am. We hugged for a long time which was good because I needed some time to recover. I cannot tell you about the first couple of minutes of our conversation because I was busy scrutinizing her face for signs of any surgery. None whatsoever. She is an anomaly of nature. (No, it isn't fair but be happy for her freakishly youthful appearance, Valri. The grass probably looks greener from her side of the fence as well. Surely she admires your cool cell phone.)

It was wonderful to see her again. She is in a long-running, off Broadway show, doing voice work, and doing what she has always wanted to do. John had a successful acting school in San Francisco and is now teaching in NY - while still working in TV and writing books. They clearly love one another, the connection between them is palpable. There is respect.

Anyway, they had several friends come to Prosecco's - a couple of whom I knew from long ago (that was fun!) and two in particular who sat next to Bob and me and were fabulous people. (One was 62 and looked no older than me - I need to hook into what ever time warp these people have found!) and a really lovely time was had by all. John and Marsha were perfect hosts, moving expertly up and down the table to visit everyone. Forget about fine wine complimenting the food - they compliment the fine wine. And I couldn't figure out what made this dinner so different from others I have attended. Until now. And I think it has to do with that personal growth thing. The commitment to improving themselves: learning, experiencing, focusing on the positive, loving, refining. They are the fine wine. After 15 years of absence I can see that they have grown better with age.

Or in Marsha's case, with youth.