PJ Party!

Recently I mentioned a friend from when we were just 5 years old. I have another friend I went to school with. This one is Cindy, and she was in the grade behind me. I didn't know her then. She hired in as a social worker six months after I did. She walked up to me, asked me if I went to her high school, and we have been fast friends ever since.

Well, there was one brief time we didn't talk much after driving together to Florida in my Jeep and camping out for a week in 1979, but we got over it, learning more about tolerating different behaviors in people and different styles of music. I liked Elvis Costello; she liked Pablo Cruse. We have argued over nothing since. We have been through a divorce each, a child each, and she has a second husband. She has moved about an hour away. This is hard, since she used to ride her bike over to see me. We used to shop together, eat out, walk my dogs, visit each other and generally have a good time.

She had a meeting about two miles from my house early on Tuesday morning, so she asked to spend the night. That happened last when she had Lasik surgery last summer. I am closer to her doctor, so I was able to also take her back in the morning for the first checkup. So I bought beer, and cleared a path through part of the house. I washed all the bedding again in the guest room. I made some stir-fry that she could eat that was low carb, and bought munchies just in case, but didn't put them out. I told the dogs to behave. They just smiled at me. Cindy is not a dog person, but for some reason she likes my unruly beagles.

She finally arrived about sundown, happy, ready for a jammie party. The dogs were dancing with joy, and running up and down the stairs with her as she put things in "her" room. We started on the beer, then took the dogs for a flashlight walk for about two miles. Cindy is a Nature Girl and loves to walk with me when we get the chance. She also swims like a fish. I don't.

When we got back, the dogs conked out and we returned to the beer, getting silly pretty fast. She brought out one pitiful looking cigarette, and I handed her an ashtray and sent her outside to sit on the wooden bench on the front porch in the dark. Then she pulled out a little joint, assuming for some reason that I would want it, but I assured her she could take that outside, too.

We got out more beer, Cindy found all the high-carb munchies and ate them, the dogs tried to sneak some, the cat begged for attention, and we got sillier. We talked about high school days, social work days, sexual escapades, her husband, her son, my daughter, and my current romantic interest. We talked about computers, since Cindy is the low tech person who took my peeled face picture and cannot set the date on her camera. She cannot handle using a pedometer. I showed her how to use a headpiece on her cell phone, but I am not sure she ever figured it out on her land line phone. The journals interested her, and she read a few entries I directed her to.

More beer, we got sillier yet, Cindy was trying to hide the munchies on herself and marveling that I didn't want any, and we put our jammies on and I tried to take a picture. My digital camera was acting up, and once I found the manual and realized that the new batteries had died, I got it all ready, we thought about it, laughed, and decided to pass.

After a few hours of sleep I sent her off to her meeting after making her some low carb bacon and eggs and coffee. Friendships like this are priceless.