My Christmas Lunch -- with Celebrity

I met Barbara at a place called Nona on the Upper West Side for our December lunch cum Christmas party for two. I got there first and was admiring the Christmas decorations in this little restaurant. I wanted to photograph the interior for my blog and went ahead, trying to not include two guys who were in the restaurant.

I took this photo:

and about 45 seconds later heard another guest whispering to her waitress if the other guest was who she thinks it is -- I overheard and realized it was a celebrity. The waitress replied, "Yes, it's Matt Dillon" and I looked at him again and realized it was. I am really bad at recognizing celebrities. I had even looked at these guys, and I was slightly embarrassed hoping that Matt Dillon didn't think I was trying to photograph him.

I haven't seen a celebrity in a while, but the ones I can remember seeing are: Goldie Hawn Christmas shopping in the Gap; Shelly Winters (now dead) in a bookstore; Patricia Neal in a coffee shop; JFK, Jr. in the subway; Lauren Hutton, sitting next to me in an airplane; Jay Leno at LAX, next to me at a payphone bank(yeah, a long time ago when people still had to use payphones!); Donald Trump getting out of a limousine on Fifth Avenue; Kathryn Hepburn coming out of the stage door when she was in Woman of the Year (although that one was different as I waited for her); Barry Goldwater in an airport; Mike Wallace at Grand Central Station (where I helped him and his wife work the self-service ticket machine); Tony Randall in an elevator; Bill Murray on the street; David Letterman in a restaurant -- those are the ones who come to mind.

So we had a really lovely lunch, exchanged presents. Barbara gave me Brooklyn-themed gifts: this little bag with a vintage photo of the Brooklyn Bridge on it along with four pieces of chocolate covered caramels with salt on top that is from a new Brooklyn chocolatier. We broke them out for dessert and each had one. The mix of sweet and salt is an interesting one -- and a delicious one.

In case Matt Dillon isn't familiar to you, here's what he looks like: