Monday Memories

I was thinking about Friends Judi and David, who are now back in Texas, enjoying the warmth and sunlight (send some our way, won't you?). Most of the time, we get little visits, although they have lived in this area on two separate occasions for a year apiece. In fact, it was Friend Judi who kept Rachel and fetched Sarah when I went to the hospital to have Abby.

Anyway, this is not making much sense. What I mean to say is that, for the most part, we have whirlwind visits with them and then they're gone. I was thinking back to some of the former visits and three were particularly memorable, for some reason. The first was the first time I met Friend David.

Friend David and Friend Husband have been friends since they were boys. I only have one friend with whom I've had a relationship since junior high and a few have kept in contact (or re-contacted) since high school. So I'm amazed that Friend Husband, the most reserved man on the planet, has this friendship of 30+ years' duration.

Friend Husband and I had a rather whirlwind courtship. I mean, we'd sort of known each other for a while, but we didn't go out together, as I was engaged to someone else. So when Someone Else dumped me, Friend Husband jumped on the opportunity to ask me out. We went out, we fell in love, we got engaged. Very quickly. So quickly that I wondered how long it would last. When I heard that his friend David was coming to town for a visit, I got nervous. What if David hated me? Would that cause Doug to see me in a different light and dump me too? I had been told that David was really really bright and that sort of freaked me out too. I mean, I'm not completely stupid but really smart people generally make me feel really dumb.

Anyway, so we set out to meet at the University of Texas campus. I had another meeting right before this one, and I had just gotten rid of that person when David and Doug walked up. David was neatly dressed, dark and quiet. We met, we hung out. I don't remember what we talked about at all but it was a pleasant experience. I wasn't quite as freaked out about meeting the rest of Doug's friends when we went to California that December. I had passed the David test.

Another memorable visit (for me, anyway) was when they came to visit in Missouri. We went to the Missouri State Fair one day and another night sat up half the night playing board games and eating. Now this is what I remember the most. You know what we were eating? Chopped liver and raw chocolate chip cookie dough. Yeah, now you know why I weigh two tons. I had made a big bowl of cookie dough, planning to bake cookies and had not gotten around to them. I made the chopped liver (think of it as cheap paté) for an appetizer. We sat and ate that stuff all night. The savoriness of the liver offset the sweet richness of the cookie dough perfectly. Once you had a bite of one, you had to have a bite of the other. It was madness. I was very sick the next day. I wonder how many grams of fat I consumed that night...and I wonder if they remember it too.

We have had many fun visits over the course of the years, including this last one. I think the one that surprised me most was in June, 1994. I had had a miscarriage the month before and was extremely depressed. Doug, Sarah and I went to Texas to visit my family and my mother planned a surprise dinner at The Salt Lick. She contacted my friend Ann-Marie and David and Judi and they all surprised me at Mother's house before we went out to eat.

(That was also the night that O.J. Simpson went on his famous "low-speed chase". We watched it for a while when we came home, until Ann-Marie pointed out what a bizarre and idiotic thing it was to do. Do you remember what you were doing that night?)

So, anyway, I was amusing myself with memories of David and Judi over the years. I'm no longer afraid of Friend David (although Friend Judi gives me pause sometimes...just kidding, Judi!) and I love seeing them. It's nice to have friends.