Friendship

Here is a series of promises that really speaks to true friendship:

1. When you are sad - I will help get you drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad.
2. When you are blue - I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.
3. When you smile - I will know you finally got laid.
4. When you are scared - I will rag on you about it every chance I get.
5. When you are worried - I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be and to quit whining.
6. When you are confused - I will use little words.
7. When you are sick - Stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don 't want whatever you have.
8. When you fall - I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass.

I received this by email a long time ago and ran across it last night while I was going through the hundreds of emails, forwards, jokes, etc. that I have saved. Ever since switching to gmail where you have pretty much unlimited storage, I've become an email (in whatever form they come) pack rat so to speak. I decided to do some cleaning out and when I read this one, I laughed myself silly.

Then realized that Teresa has done EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE except number two as I've never choked in her presence. I usually only spill food onto my chest (the catch all for everything - one of the perils of being large-breasted), not choke on it.

Anyway. I have a few more that can be added to that list.

Like last night, when an effin mouse ran across my bedroom floor, I wigged. I hate mice and I would not get off the safety of my bed. I had brightly colored, polka dot socks on and to my way of thinking... the little bastard was obviously not scared of human beings or he wouldn't have come out when he KNEW I was there. Awake. What's to stop him from thinking "o.O! Pretty! I want one of those polka-dots for my home!" and chasing me, possibly nibbling on my ankles?

I was desperately trying to come up with a solution for my problem. First, the closet is about five feet away from my bed and there is a baseball bat in there; however, that would have entitled me to get off my bed. Second, THE CAT! I started calling for her but of course, she didn't come. She was outside, hooking it on third street with the hot little hood-cats. I had pillows on my bed but they wouldn't have been very effective. I also had my laptop, but there was no way that I was going to chuck my baby at that ghetto Mr. Jingles. I also had a bottle of lotion and I thought I might squirt some at it, maybe get it in his eyes and blind him; but I figured that would just make him run around all crazy and I'd never catch him. Then I contemplated trying to knock it out with the bottle, but my aim sucks under normal circumstances - much less when I'm sitting on my bed, terrified, because of a damn mouse.

So I called Teresa up to inform her of my plight as she was working graveyards. She's quite handy at survival things, given her four years in the army and what-not. But was she helpful? I THINK NOT! All she did was laugh. Then put me on the speakerphone without my knowledge so that everyone else could laugh as well.

Seeing the similarities between this call and the infamous "frog call" of 2003, she just HAD to bring that up. Here's a short side trip:

When I was 18, I was living in my own apartment, and I walked out of my ground floor apartment, headed to the store, when I rounded the bushes in front of my front door and seen that every damn bug in the town had just had babies on the cement walkway. It looked like a hospital for stink bugs. Really quite disgusting. So I went into my house and did what any other normal, logical person would do. Upon finding that I didn't have any bug killer, I grabbed some "Orange Glo" cleaner and douched the sidewalk with it, killing all those nasty creatures. I turned around to go back into my apartment and put the chemical away, given the fact that my work there was done... when this huge ass frog jumped out in front of me. I tried to walk around it, but it jumped in front of me and prevented me from doing so. Then it kept jumping and, well, it really freaked me out. I walked around the entire staircase and got into my apartment from the side. That's when I looked back to see if the frog had followed me in and I seen the dead bird laying on the grass in front of the bushes.

Now I don't know if the frog killed it or it had a heart attack as the result of the Invasion of Bugs, but I do know that at that time, we were under watch for West Nile Virus or some such thing, that is carried in birds. So I called the Sheriff's Office - Teresa was working - and I started explaining the situation to her. It may have been the fact that there were so many dead things around me all at once. Or that a frog tried to attack me. Or that she was laughing hysterically... but I started to cry and told her someone needed to come get this damn bird. That was another instance of when she put me on speakerphone so EVERYONE could hear. And, of course, laugh.

Well, a copy of that tape got made. And gradually, the word spread to surrounding areas and people started requesting copies of the tape. They are open to the public; anyone can get a copy - but these were law enforcement agencies. Colorado State Patrol one of them. The last I heard, most every cop shop in the state has a copy of it AND the guy who goes around training dispatchers for EMD (Emergency Medical Dispatching) has a copy as well and uses it in his training. Thanks to Teresa who got a copy to a trainer out of San Jose, California - where it is now spreading through that state.

I guess she thought it was hilarious about the mouse (I swear I have the worst luck with nasty, ucky, bugs, reptiles, and just... creatures) so she did something. I have no idea what - she won't tell me. But my suspicion would be that she had a tape made of that and is distributing it like a crackwhore distributes blow jobs.

I truly don't know why I have to be such a GIRL about some things. It causes untold amounts of embarassment I can tell ya that much...

I had to go mail off my bills tonight (bye bye paycheck *sigh*) and I stopped by the store to get my mom a Sierra Mist as her stomach has been upset today, myself a Cherry Coke as I just felt like having one, and go through the drive thru at our ghetto McDonalds for a Vanilla Milkshake for my dad.

Now, let me explain something. We have been remodeling and doing construction on our house for almost two years now. Their most recent project is to expand the driveway up to the porch and make it all kind of... well, flow. The driveway's edges are supposed to match the color of the brick retainer wall that goes around our front lawn. However, while we are in the middle of this temporarily-stalled project due to the snow... the front of our house is a frickin' law suit waiting to happen. Mud, snow, and ice EVERYWHERE. There is no place for all the water to go from melting snow so it puddles in front of our flat stone, steps. This is a problem that will be corrected once the driveway is finished and we can get... I think it's called a french drain... installed. But until then, we've got more ice than the Rockefeller's Center in NYC.

I haven't fallen ONCE this winter, but tonight, I took a digger hard-core. I had my hands full so I couldn't even catch myself, it happened that fast. Did a belly flop/face plant into snow, ice, and rock - both the stone steps and the rocks that are everywhere from the displacement of our old driveway. I tweaked my back, my knee has swelled up to the size of a small grapefruit, I'm pretty sure I fractured a small bone in my pinky on my left hand because it too has swelled and is turning black and blue. I basically (on accident of course) hit the stone with that side of my hand when I fell. The milkshake went everywhere, the sodas had to wait to be opened for about 30 minutes. I was covered in mud and snow. And now I feel like I have a whole body strain. Everything is tight, sore, and/or achy and I know I'm going to be one hurtin' unit tomorrow.

I call Teresa up and tell her what happened and what does she say? "Suck it up and quit whining."

NEVERMIND that's what I told her last month when she broke her toe. First of all, this is different as it's my entire body and she just had one little bitty toe. Secondly, I TOLD her to go to the doctor to get some pain medicine and they could at least wrap it to keep pressure on it and make sure it wasn't dislocated. She refused. Instead, she kept whining about how much it hurt and blah, blah. There's only so many times you can say, "I'm sorry" before it gets old.

Let's not forget the time that she and her Redhead videotaped me, sleeping. I was, uhm... having a rather... erotic dream and was... being quite expressive about it in my sleep. Then she wrote about it in her journal, like showing it to half the town wasn't bad enough!!

Yes, a twat she can be, that's for sure!

But...

She's also the first person to lift me up when I'm down about something legitimate. If I'm just in one of my "moods" I get into and I'm crying over EVERYTHING - she will either laugh at me or tell me to suck it up.

She constantly pushes me out of my comfort zone.

She refuses to let me draw into myself when I'm depressed. When I went through that whole severe-depression thing last year and wouldn't return anyone's phone calls or do anything except work and sleep... she was the only one that refused to be put off. If she knew I wasn't working, then she was over at my house, dragging me out of bed, making me go with them on some outing or other.

She's the first one to realize when I'm about to crack because of the high pressure/stress situations that seem to come along. I remember reaching that point this last summer and she came by, picked me up, and we went to Cxxxx for the day with Brat and one of his friends. We went to the pool and let the kids play while we lounged in our swimsuits on the grass and read. All afternoon - never speaking, just reading and relaxing. It helped me find some inner calm and reduced the temperature of the pressure cooker so I wasn't on boiling anymore.

There was a weekend romance thing with this guy this past summer. I went out to her house to hang out, only to find out that Mike was on his way out there. I was flipping out because I'd worn sandals and hadn't painted my toenails or anything. I have a complex about my feet and she knew what a big deal this was to me. So she drags me into the bathroom and gave me a five minute pedicure, complete with hooker red polish on my toes before he got there, so I could greet him with confidence and not feel all weird/self-conscious.

She helped make it okay within myself when I broke the one vow I had made and actually kept through high school. I had always swore I would wait until marriage to have sex and one night, when I was 21 (the day of my sister's high school graduation actually), I broke that vow. I woke her up at 3:30am, freaking out - thank God she rarely locks her front door - most people don't in this small community where everyone knows everyone. Just for the record: I am very candid about sex and will talk openly about it with most anyone - especially if I feel comfortable with them. Being frank, open, and honest about it in conversation; however, does not necessarily mean that I am "easy" or take sex lightly. I can count the number of people I've slept with on one hand. Uhm, fooled around with... no. But actually had sex with? Yes. Have I done the one night stand thing? Yes... and I wasn't comfortable with it either. I mean, it was fun while mid-act but walking away from it - I felt like a slut. I will also never do the "revenge sex" thing ever again either. They may find out about it and feel a little hurt or peeved or jealous or whatever... but you're the one that has to live with the knowledge of what you did. That you callously used another human being and the whole time you were "doin your thang" in the back of your mind you're thinking, "take that you bastard!" Not exactly an experience you can walk away from feeling proud of yourself about.

Especially when said guy comes back around, wanting to go out on a real date and you have to figure out a way to let them know you're not interested without hurting their feelings. Because obviously they're going to be confused i.e. "ehh.. you slept with me once but now you don't want to see me again or go to dinner or really even talk to me?" Not that I said that but non-verbal communication can scream at you sometimes and I'm sure he got the message. Talk about feeling like crap. In any case, the point is... I've talked to her after every sexual encounter I've ever had (hey, it's a girl thing) and she's always helped me to deal with whatever emotion I was feeling about it. Whether it was a high five because he was THIS big and I got mine THIS many times. Or a "dude, I feel like shit..." or a "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST DID THIS!!" kind of thing. Anyway, moving along!

She took care of me from day one, the first week after Matt's death. I was in a state of shock and was not really... functioning. Between her and Erin, they made sure I ate, helped me escape when my psychotic extended family got to be too much - mostly my cousin, Sarah. I'm still incredibly angry with her over some of the things she pulled that week: selfish, self-centered, fucking bitch is all I'll say about that in this entry.

My parents own a 5 bedroom, 3 bath house - but it wasn't enough space for all the family that was here. I was pretty much feeling homicidal by the time we got through with the funeral, dealing with all the people, putting up with Sarah's shit, and being surrounded by everyone who wanted words from me. Teresa understood that and since there wasn't really room anyway, I spent the night with her that Saturday. She pushed me into her bathroom where she'd drawn a hot, bubble bath, in her monstrous garden tub, set a glass of wine, cigarettes, lighter, ashtray, and towel on surrounding areas of the tub, put a book in my hand and told me to go relax and take as long as I needed.

We talked the other night on the way home from Rxxxx about why we were such good friends when there's a ten year age gap. She hadn't ever really hung out with people that much younger, much less became best friends with them, before me. We never could really come up with an answer... we just clicked. And after nearly four years of friendship, we just "get" one another. Often times, we'll finish each other's sentences or get what the other is trying to say without really saying the words. She helped draw me out of this passive little shell I was in and made me realize that I didn't have to be a doormat, just to be "nice." We give each other what we need instinctively - whether it's a hand up, someone to just sit in silence with, a laugh, a shoulder to cry on, whatever.

So yeah... she has her faults, who doesn't? I know I certainly have a couple quite a few. But I know who I can depend on to be there for both the trials AND the triumphs.

I haven't really talked about Erin that much in here - mostly because she lives about an hour's drive away from here. And she's married with a two year old son so I don't get to see her as much as I would like. However, she's the same way. Most people are lucky if they can say they have one true friend in this world that would do anything at all for you. I'm blessed because I can say, without reservation, that I have two.

And because we know each other so well, Teresa will completely be expecting this and understand when I say "Fuck you very much about the tape(S)" - she knows I still love her. :)