Jennifro

THE GIRLS

A good friend is a connection to life -- a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. ~Lois Wyse

I friend can tell you things you don't want to tell yourself.

~Frances Ward Keller

I feel so lucky that I have always had wonderful friends.  Countless times through the years, I have contemplated my good fortune in this area.  I've had rich and meaningful relationships with other girls for nearly four decades now (and don't even get me started on boy friends--you know who you are!).  As I look back at every phase of my life:  childhood, junior high, high school, college, married life, married with children life....it's my friends that come to mind when I picture those stages.  Recently my gal pals and I decided we needed to get more regular in our socializing. We've set aside the first Friday of every month to get together for dinner and maybe a movie if we can halt the conversation long enough. This has been a happy and positive charge in my life and of course something I look forward to all month. You should never underestimate the good that comes when girlfriends get together to laugh, vent, reminisce, gossip? (yep) and compare experiences.

The best way to mend a broken heart, 

is time and girlfriends. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow

Whenever I get sentimental about my friendships (like I am today) a few (about 100) of the same old memories always pop into my mind...I don't know why. It's kind of like a reoccurring dream only I'm awake.  I'll highlight a few. 

The first one is round about fourth or fifth grade. My best friend Tara and I just got new purses for Christmas. Mine was dark blue and looked like a mini duffle bag with a unicorn in rainbow colors on the front. I can't remember the color of hers. Anyway, we brought these couture 80's gems to church and during our primary class did our very best to drive the teacher insane with our furious zipping and unzipping, zipping and unzipping, zipping and unzipping. Taking out each time another flavor of lip smackers (the slide kind in the tin) lip gloss to share with each other. I remember how our poor, flustered teacher finally grew red in the face and flipped out, telling us how horrible and insensitive we were and made us put our purses under our chairs. Of course this only made the situation hilarious to us. Nothing could compare to the smug eye communication, and inside laughing we shared after her blow up. What brats...but it's a great memory all the same. (sorry Sister Peterson)

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford 

to be stupid with them.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another one I think about takes place shortly after my friend Krista got her driver's license we (six of us best friends) decided to do something really wacky.  Something that had never been done before..not EVEN in Vegas!  It had to be crazier even than toilet papering the Tingey's house.  After a good half an hour of sophomore suggestions, we agreed upon the unthinkable. Why not drive through McDonald's in our....dare we say it aloud?...bras!  Oh the laughter, the silly, silly laughter that ensued just daring to imagine such lasciviousness!  Please try to imagine the ear splitting frenzy produced by six psychotic girls as we ripped past the take out window wearing nothing but our hooter hiders.  I have no doubt she came down so hard on the pedal that we were nothing more than a royal blue blur,  but, no matter, we had dared to do something really spectacular that had probably never been attempted at the Micky D's on Spring Mountain Rd.

Some people go to priests, others to poetry.  I, to my friends.

~Virginia Woolf

One recollection that still gets me teary (as it represents a perfect time in my life) is 1988, my Freshman year in college, when Jill and Kim and I would drive to SLC to go to Zenon or a Book of Love concert or whatever else promised us an unforgettable time.  It was our tradition to squeeze all three in the front of Kim's red mustang with slick leather seats, blast the music and sing our hearts out for the entire ride.  Our best number by far, was "Midnight" by Yaz.  I still get a thrill remembering the intense emotion with which we belted...BELTED

Darling you know-ho it looks bad
Just lost the best thing that I ever had
Still I don't know why I did him wrong
It's too late now he's gone to say-ay...

Baby!! oh no, can't leave me now
Said think about it please!
Cos I love you and I need you!
And I should have thought of that before I did you wrong....

Three Vegas Chicks driving through the ice and snow, harmonizing, mixing and trading parts, the headlights leading the way to our next undiscovered adventure.  

Next month "the girls" will go to "First Saturday" in Frederick where the shops are open late and the people come out in droves to enjoy music on the street, art, fine food and the warm June air....the company will be good enough for me.

Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the 

sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement, 

the greater part of life is sunshine. ~Thomas Jefferson