Old Friends Revisited

Hey,

Please forgive me if this is short, but I am wiped out. I'm trying to stay up for The Cleaner but I may fall asleep waiting. First of all, I referred to KB only once earlier, and quite briefly. Also, I called her "G" - I remember why now, but had forgotten and unknowingly changed her "name." So let's stick with KB. Actually, she and I have known each other for almost as long as I have known JB. They are very close so she was always around whenever I came to visit. We have always gotten along extremely well - she's overweight and on meds and wacky like me, not perfect and skinny and rich like her sister. (So I really like her!) The reason I wasn't serving wine is that she is a recovering drug addict - so she drinks very little, if at all. Just didn't want to put that out there as temptation. A couple of weeks ago I spent the day with her, shopping for interview suits, so today she came out to the house. I gave her the grand tour of Mayberry, then we decided against the pasta salad since we were already out and met J for teriyaki in town. (He has also known her for years.) She's married to a guy who is the terminal manager for a trucking company, whose job has taken them from LA to Colorado, to eastern WA and now, purely coincidentally, to here. I was very excited with this news and so was she - we really have fun together. We came home after lunch today and lounged around in my living room, talking about her new shrink and chatting with my boys and drinking frapps from Starbucks. All in all a great visit. Since she's looking for full time employment, we're trying to spend some time together before she can't anymore.

I might have told you that I rejoined my book club...? The one I was in a few years ago...I got so busy with teaching I just couldn't keep up. Our first meeting of the year was tonight and it was wonderful to see everyone again. (Two of the women live in my neighborhood, but the other five I hardly ever see.) All of us are in education in one way or another - teachers, librarians, guidance counselors, admissions officers. We range in age from 44 (me) to 80 (my neighbor ML, whose husband died this summer, I think I told you.) It's a fun, if somewhat conservative, group. We don't always read books I'd choose on my own (or that I think are worthwhile) but I love talking about books no matter what. We meet for dinner and drinks and conversation once a month. Surprisingly, no one had read Eat, Pray, Love yet, except me, so we chose that as our first book of the year and we'll discuss in October. I'm psyched, even though I've already read it, to talk about it. It was good to connect with women again.

And that's about as far as I'm going to get today...purely informational. I didn't sleep again last night (my growing habit of waking up at 3 in the morning and never really getting back to sleep.) I think I'll tuck in and see how far I make it to 10 while trying to read more in Breaking Free From Emotional Eating. Which I will talk about later...

Glad to hear you had such a wonderful visit with the fam on Sunday; what beautiful kids! And no, I don't believe I've read any of your manuscript, so send it along post haste. As for your lab class this afternoon - it just causes me to turn my face heavenward and say, Thank You God. Not to be unsympathetic, just grateful. Hang in there. :-)

Off to the fair tomorrow with JJ and his friend B -should be fun. For them. I'll try to write when we get home.
Love, A