Check this out. Jeff and I are taking a trip. A jaunt. A weekend getaway, if you will. And I think you would if you were in our shoes, because DAMN, these kids are needy. My mother has to work a bit this weekend, so this trip is made possible by my fantastic friend (Hi Jamie!), who is keeping the kids today and my fantastic-this-weekend ex-husband, who is keeping the kids on Saturday, including the one that isn’t his. This trip has been in the makings for like six months and you would think the way I made lists and arrangements and orchestrated everything (see stocked the fridge with frozen pizza and juice and paid bills early) that we were going overseas for a month so we can travel as a foreign diplomats.
Instead we are going to Oklahoma to watch a football game.
It’s going to be so fun, I can’t even stand it. I mean, three whole days of not wiping butts and not cutting up people’s grapes so they won’t choke is like time off for good behavior. (Note to Jeff and all of Oklahoma: Wipe your own butt and please chew your grapes thoroughly.) We will be knee deep in Miller Lites by nine in the morning because it’s an early game and we have spirit, yes we do. I will get to see my peeps from college and my good friend Steve and his hottie wife are driving up from Texas and that’s a total bonus. We go way back, we met when I was a sophomore and he was a freshman, which is like 98 years ago if you are a dog. In honor of our trek to Oklahoma, I requested that Steve write a little something to explain the finer details of our friendship. I fully expected two sentences, something along the lines of “I thought you were a jackass” and “I figured you would stop making me be friends with you when we graduated”.
Here’s what he wrote:
I don’t know exactly when Zakary and I met, but it was early in college and I know she was wearing her intramural sports referee uniform. She was pretty abrasive, but pretty pretty, and we ended up hanging out fairly often, drinking vodka and Tang. She scared me a bit, and I bored her a bit.
My fondest memory of Zak is like a thousand way tie between a bunch of little things. The emergency roadside pit stop (after a Bob effing Seger concert in Dallas) when she turned her brights directly on me as I peed on a dumpster. Her Winona Ryder-ing a pair of Audrey Hepburn sunglasses by simply putting them on and walking out of the store. Going to Branson, Missouri on purpose. Intense, summer-long letter writing campaigns during breaks from school. Intense, years-long silences when we just couldn’t be friends.
When I heard from someone else during one of those “breaks” that she was having a kid and getting married, I pretty much wrote this friendship off. If you had told me then that almost ten years later we’d be close, or even speaking, I’d have laughed my ass off. So my fondest memory is now. Knowing her kids and awesome husband and not feeling the least bit sappy saying so. Looking forward to hanging out in Oklahoma next week. Really looking forward to the first time Zoe is old enough to hear the answer to “What was my mom like in college?”
After 15 years, I think we’re finally, truly friends.
O.M.G. How awesome is that? It’s totally like Beaches, except I can’t sing for shit and Steve isn’t a wasp lawyer for the ACLU.
Have a good weekend, y’all. I’m off to spread my awesome friendship lessons with the dirty south. Or at least just drink beer and make an ass out of myself. Miller Lite, the tie that binds.
