friendly musings

a phone message from Olivia:

Hello. It is me. I was calling to see if you were watching the queen's arrival in Richmond today for the Jamestown 400th anniversary. Very exciting. Pretty soon you will be one of her majesty's subjects. But you will still be an American. But you will still be one of her subjects. If you know what I mean. Anyhoo... I was calling to see if you like port wine cheese because I was going to get a port wine cheeseball. So if you get this message, give me a call. If not, you'll just have to suck it up because I am getting a port wine cheeseball.

I have been seeing a lot of the DWAFS since Jonny and I returned from vacation. Sunday night they came to our house to watch the new Pride and Prejudice and devour the cookies I brought back from England. Except Katherine and Olivia both forgot to bring the movie so we watched Sliding Doors instead.

It hit me, as the ladies were arriving, how much has changed in the years since we began meeting. When we formed DWAFS, we were all working at Borders. We would all bring things like a bag of Pepperidge Farm milanos or chips and dip. On Sunday, Adrienne brought a crock pot full of homemade Swedish meatballs, Elisa brought a tofu orzo salad, Kris brought a tossed salad, Olivia brought a bottle of wine.

Somehow over the years, we have become adults.

Barbra is now a mother and a high school teacher. Katherine and Kris have college degrees. Olivia is a certified massage therapist. Elisa is engaged.

I love these girls. We are all so different, and yet there is such a feeling of support and respect among us. I am really nervous about leaving them. I know that these women will always be my friends and they would come to England to visit me, but I will never make new friends like these. I know because I don't make friends easily. Olivia says she pictures me in a park in England with Blue and the Lion and some other mommy strikes up a conversation, is surprised to find I am American, and voila a friendship is born. I hope so.

This month DWAFS is meeting at Kris' house. We're watching To Kill a Mockingbird (is Harper Lee dead?) and bringing Southern food. So it's basically a combination tribute to Gregory Peck, Harper Lee and Paula Deen. Fabulous.

Kris came over on Wednesday to watch Lost. And I went to Olivia and Katherine's apartment last night to hang out with them and Adrienne and watch the 2 hour Grey's Anatomy. Which was really a pilot for Addison's spin-off and about 5 minutes of screentime for the original Grey's Anatomy cast so we felt pretty cheated, but we watched anyway. And I have to say I was pretty pissed off with McDreamy last night. What the... If someone (even if it is my father) slaps me in the face in front of Jonathan, he had damn well better run over and comfort me right away. That's all I'm saying.