What to talk about today....

Oh hummmm, what to say. I really want to post, but I have nothing of much consequence to say. It's all important to me, but you, who are eagerly awaiting enlightenment or laughter or just a feeling of superiority, might not find it too important.

I could talk about some of the random google searches that have led to my blog. Like, "bare bottomed spanking". I spent about 3 days trying to decide if I should alter the spelling of spanking or something, then realized that the people who did come look clicked in and clicked out in the same second. Do you know how hard that is to do?
Nature Vs Nurture with Oliver Twist. That's gotten two people led to me.
And My favorite, this exact phrase in "ask Je.eves"
Where can a teenage girl, such as myself, find an appropriate blogging website? What the? Do teenage girls, such as this one, actually use phrases like, "such as myself"? I ask you!

Or I could talk about how today my friend Camille turned 25. I babysat her when she was 8 years old. And her 5 younger siblings. Then 10 years after that, she was my roommate in college. My senior year, her freshman year. We did things like, cram 12 people into my 2 door Sentra to drive 4 blocks, we couch surfed and body surfed (that's the airplane thing I do with my children now, yeah, I did it with my 18 year old wisp of a thing roommate, I have big bones).

We both let other people drive our cars and they wrecked them. Not with each other, but on separate days at separate intersections. The girl who wrecked hers was gawking at a hotty in Wranglers and the girl who wrecked mine was getting flipped off by an 80 year old lady in an Oldsmobile. We took multiple road trips together from 90 miles to 9 hours away.

She drove me over to my boyfriend's house and waited in the car while I broke up with him. I didn't want to, but I needed to (he wanted a taco bar at his wedding reception guys, I had no choice!) and she sat and waited and then told me I had done the right thing and let me cry. She told me once that I didn't ever act like an annoying know-it-all even though I did and I got the point. Now I don't act like an annoying know-it-all. I'm not annoying and I'm not acting.

She didn't even pretend to be helpful in staying awake on more than one long road trip. On one midnight trip our other roommate made it her duty to "help me stay awake" and fell asleep almost immediately. She would wake up every 8 minutes or so and scream "LEAF!" and clutch the dashboard, or "IT'S PURPLE, YES!" and seize my shoulder and bear down on it as though to save it from suddenly seperating from my body. I think it might have been safer to fall asleep at the wheel.

She talked me into going to our final Hoorah dance at our university and participate in the "most couples kissing at one time" with some random boy. Yeah, that boy came to our house everyday, twice on Tuesday's and Thursday's for the rest of the school year after that kiss. Camille on the other hand, got her photo taken kissing our neighbor boy who was "just a friend" and it was front page, dead center of the local newspaper (not piddly school paper) in what looked like a reenactment of a scene from Casablanca. Yeah, they got married after that kiss.

When Camille, the oldest of 8 moved into our apartment, her parents drove her the 5 hours and her mom came and picked the room that was furthest from the kitchen, in case a fire started in the kitchen she'd have enough time to be apprised of it and escape. That room was selected to have the easiest escape route from fires, rapists, and rabid dogs. She flipped her mattress to be on the cleanest side. She checked the closest and under the bed. She made 5 duplicate house keys, 4 of which she took back home with her. She made her husband add two more dead bolts and replace the door knob lock on our door. All the window locks were checked. The windows had to open AND lock. She stayed until Camille was unpacked, loaded up with groceries, and walked her to her first class. I shared a room with Camille. I'm the 8th of 9 children. My mom called a week and a half into the school year and asked if I'd had any luck finding a place to live yet.

She rode with me on graduation day and cried with me when I left that perfect little college town that we loved so much.

She drove the 1000 plus miles with me to my home in Missouri, and then flew out to see me again a few weeks later.

Then she got married.

Then I got married. To to this guy ------------------->

Then I had a baby, and she watched my baby twice a week.

Then she had a baby, and we watched each other's babies and talked about the great secrets our mothers had kept from us about pregnancy and parenting. They made it seem so effortless.

And now we have toddlers/preschoolers and go where our husbands get jobs and email between our children's demands and phone calls and laundry and meal preparation. We share recipes, she gives my kids the best books, and when I listen to Indigo Girls while my two children throw the pillows off the couch and put craft paint on hammers and hit the carpet with it and smear snot across their faces in a valiant effort to keep their noses clean, I get a nostalgic feeling for so many of the memories we've created. I'd like to cram into my Sentra, or road trip to Colorado, or make a midnight run for french fries, or explain to a neighbor that pickles are cucumbers, but other foods can be pickled, and still not actually BE pickles, and then laugh until tears are coming, all over again.

But my Sentra died, I still mourn it's untimely death. Road trips are out of the question, we don't even live in the same state. French Fries are a no-no for my aging thighs, and I make a pointed effort to avoid adults who don't understand the concept of pickling. So much has changed in 7 short years.

I think there will always be a little part of me that wishes to live some of those moments again. But an even bigger part of me is simply glad for those experiences and for all that time I got to spend with Camille. And so grateful that now we can swap parenting advice and share baby stories and brag about our children's "accomplishments" and coast forevermore on the foundation that started 16 years ago when I, an annoying know-it-all 15 year old argued with Camille's mom (the giver of sage advice in this post) about the correct pronunciation of "often" (silent T or not guys---this may be a defining point in our future relationship) and Camille, a quiet, but brilliant 9 year old, secretly sided with me and always remembered that conversation.

Yeah, I think I'll talk about my friend Camille who turned 25 today.