So I was walking down Seventh Avenue talking to my great friend Red Eft (Gluten-Free) on the cell phone as I often do and I mentioned that she and her husband, Dadu, were in this week’s Smartmom.

I guess she was near her computer because she read the column while I was crossing Union Street.

"’Suburban Pals a Memory?’" she said. "We didn’t move to the suburbs. Kingston is a small city."

"I know. That must have gotten edited out," Smartmom said.

"’A city childhood is no different from childhood anywhere else?’" she read my line from the article. "I don’t think that’s true at all," she added.

"I know. It’s kind of a joke," Smartrmom said.

"’The ease of shouting up to a window Brooklyn-style must be replaced with the effort of picking up the phone?’ You never shouted up to our window Brooklyn-style," she joked.

"Ahh. Yeah. I took liberties. The characters are sometimes amalgams. You know. Smartmom is an amplified version of me," I said probably defensively.

"This thing is so NY-centric," Red Eft said.

"Yeah. That’s kind of the joke. Smartmom has this persona…"

By the time I got to Lincoln Place we were talking about other things. I wasn’t sure if she was mad at me or just taking issue with the writing. I certainly didn’t mean to offend them and I’m pretty sure she knows that.

Red Eft and my friendship transcends geography and is all the richer for their move upstate. It is a friendship built on shared interests, trust, shared emotions, and insight. I value her deeply — not that I have to say that here.

I amplify aspects of myself and my Brooklyn-centric attitude when I write Smartmom. Much of it is tongue-in-cheek. Some of it isn’t. I guess it can be hard to tell. When I write Smartmom, she speaks to me. Half the time, I don’t even KNOW what she’s gonna say.  And that’s the fun.

Red Eft, Dadu, and family are coming down to Brooklyn on Sunday. We’re having brunch at Beso, our old favorite Fifth Avenue haunt. Kingston is really just two hours from Park Slope.

They left Park Slope for their own, and very personal, reasons. And they’ve made a really interesting life for themselves in that SMALL UPSTATE CITY. I commend their ability to change their lives in such an interesting and fulfilling way.

But I bet they don’t have pancakes like Beso’s in Kingston. oops.