Friends

A cold Sunday afternoon with friends. We caught some serious air on the jumps, Jack. We sledded until dark, and then fifty percent of our family fell asleep in the car on the way home.

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The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Southern Mail, 1929, translated from French by Curtis Cate The truest, most loving friends in the world helped us pack our truck and clean our house on a Friday night. Kids raced around, got underfoot and played hot potato. Crazy Phil discovered some 20 year-old homemade pickles in my basement. Despite the corroded lids, despite the fact that the pickles were floating around in a murky, green water filled with unidentifiable objects of plant origin, he ate them. Then he passed them around. Video of that disgusting event here. There was pizza and a little drinking and my girlfriends washed my bathrooms, packed my food, washed my fridges, and slipped care packages of new toys and goodies into the truck for us to discover on our arrival. Their acts of kindness that night filled my heart to overflowing. ...

The first friend I ever had, someone who came into my life when I was just three years old, sent me these two photos taken on our first day of kindergarten. I cannot get enough of the Donnie and Marie? Luke and Leia? lunch box I am carrying, or the crazy 70’s get ups, or her blond pigtails, and can you believe the adorable red flower I am holding for my teacher? We were so little and sweet, and had no idea that bus steps were supposed to be taken single file. We were innocents, pure in intention, ready to love and be loved, a universe of possibility in tiny packages.

I sewed a Japanese-style cross-back apron out of Baltic linen for a very beautiful and dear friend of mine. I was in such a hurry to ship it off to her that I didn’t bother to take any photos, but she’s graciously allowing me to post her pics here. I used the instructions found here to piece it together in just a couple of hours. Then I slipped a quilted heart into the oversized pocket for extra love.

A coffeecake for new homeowners. I’ll never be able to wrap presents in plastic bows and bright paper again.

I brought 16 balls of pizza dough, a big jar of my homemade New York-style sauce, and a jar of my spicy caramelized onion and hot cherry pepper mix to a friend’s house Sunday afternoon. Pizza for 16 was quite a project. I slid pizza on and off of the hot stone for about two and a half hours, red-faced, hair piled high on my head and sweat trickling behind my apron. Lovely image, I know. I sipped on a glass of old vine Zin and chatted with lady friends while working. Children popped in and out of the sweltering kitchen to place their pizza orders and check on status. My pizza was last to come out of the oven. It was delish, if I may say so myself.

I have tons of soft, sweet clover growing all over my backyard and I and refuse to cut it short or spray it with herbicides. I just can’t do it. I often sit on a bar stool in my kitchen and watch the bunnies and birds hang out. The bunnies chow on the flowers and the birds look for worms near my de facto/illicit compost pile. On warm spring evenings, our neighbor carries his huge bass across the driveway and plants it in the front yard. His little ones often follow him over. We grab the sidewalk chalk and whatever instruments are handy and then we jam. People dance, people draw, people come out and stare. ...

Alastair and Jacqui were once “the church sound guy and his worship singer wife” to me, little more than strangers. In fact the first real conversation I had with Alastair went something like […] Alastair, standing in front of me, a microphone stand between us: “Sing louder.” Me: “I can’t.” Alastair: *sigh* Slowly we became good friends, and now ten years later, Alastair and Jacqui are as close to my heart as family. They invited us over for dinner this past Saturday evening. The meal Alastair cooked[…]