KATIE HONAN

I had dinner tonight with my 87-year-old neighbor who lives across the hall. She invited me over for lo-mein and pie a couple days ago — how could i say no?

After we ate the lo-mein (house special) she showed me around her beautiful apartment with the furniture she brought to it after getting married in 1971, furniture from her mother’s house in the Bronx, furniture she decided to keep after shopping for a new living room set and not able to find anything new.

“I wanted the furniture to speak to me,” she told me. “When I told that to the guy at the store, he said, ‘maybe you should get a telephone!’”

She showed me photos of her family. She told me about her friends, some living, mostly dead. She told me who married a prince (Rita), who didn’t (her) and showed me photos from her 70th birthday party. Could it have been 17 years ago?

We then went back into the kitchen for lemon merengue pie. She apologized for taking a long time finding the words she was looking for. “My vocabulary is going with my age.”

Her oldest girlfriend is still alive — but she can’t speak.

“I think she lost it or something,” she said. She hadn’t seen her in a long time, but it wasn’t all so bad at 87. She doesn’t take so many pills. She was off the one fo high blood pressure. And two years ago, a young friend from church asked her to be the Matron of Honor at her wedding.

“People must have thought I looked funny walking down the aisle,” she said while showing me photos of her dressed in a light pink silk shirt.

“Time marches on.”