what besties can teach us

I was reading Jenn's post about a group of bitter divorcees who were handing out advice to their kids on how to avoid a bad marriage: wait until you're at least 30 years old to marry.

I replied that I thought it was ridiculous to pick an arbitrary age and think that is the magic bullet.

I married around the age of 30 and I think I have a pretty good marriage so you might think the bitter divorcee advice holds true. But I dont' think it was just our age that made it so. I think it was the fact that he was available as often as I wanted him to be. He didn't weasel out of dates or show up late or not show up at all. He cared about my well being (in the bedroom, even). He valued me as a friend and as a person with thoughts and opinions that mattered.

Not exactly advice on marriage but a good parallel, I read an article by a therapist who suggested we teach our daughters to only have sex with someone who feels like a best friend, who acts like a best friend. Someone who you can talk to about anything, who you trust will stand by your side, who helps you when you need it, who is reliable, who shows up, who is kind in words and actions. Most of our kids know what a best friend looks like so it's tapping knowledge and feelings they're already familiar with.

What kind of advice would you give someone who wants to know the secret to choosing a healthy mate?

Painting: Besties by Danielle Fraser

telephone bust

This post by Blue Yak got me thinking about one of my most embarrassing on-the-phone moments.

I was maybe a junior in college. I was kinda seeing, kinda dating but mostly just wanting to be friends with this guy who I will call Thomas.

I really liked Thomas. He was a kind, smart, shy, poetic stoner with twinkly brown eyes and some of the most awesome, sexy hair. I think he had gone to my school but maybe dropped out, partly due to his extra curriculars but mostly due to finances.

Thinking back, and this could be a complete fabrication at this point, he was a mix between Jim Morrison and Seth Rogen.

The hair was Seth, only a lot longer. The eyes, definitely Jim.

Thomas also made one of the best omelettes I had ever eaten. To this day, I add a little bit of water to my eggs in his honor. Makes the omelette light and fluffy. He might have been wifty but he made an amazing omelette.

Back to the phone story. Thomas hung around my apartment a lot. It was one of those Saturday mornings where he was acting a little too comfortable, like he might just stay around for life the whole weekend. But I had other plans. I was trying to figure out a way to ditch him kindly get him to go home.

What I came up with was pathetic this:

I had my roommate knock and tell me that so-and-so had called while I was out and asked that I call her back.

This was in prehistoric times, by the way, before answering machines, let alone cell phones. (Really, though? How did we manage to date without answering machines and cell phones? I'll tell you how. We stupid stupid women sat at home by the phone. And it really really sucked.)

So I picked up the phone but pressed on the disconnect button and pretended to have a conversation with so-and-so. Where the gist was, "Oh hey, that's right, so-and-so. I forgot we were going to go there this afternoo----"

At this very moment the phone chose to ring. The phone I was holding in my hand and having a pretend conversation, rang.

Busted.

Thomas was lying on the floor, I remember, watching me the whole time. Because that's what he did, mostly.

I quickly released the button then hung up on the true caller. I tried to play it off. Badly. To Thomas I said,

"Huh? What just happened? That was weird. Wasn't it?!"

With an ever growing confused look on his face he tilted his head as if to say, Huh is right?

"I guess we got disconnected somehow while I was ... uh ... you know ... talking to her."

I don't remember too much after that. I do remember then, and now, being grateful, that he was a stoner. Thinking he might have just thought, "That was weird, dude." Nothing more. Feelings spared. But I doubt even he was that clueless.

Any embarrassing dating phone moments out there?

a new year, a new blog

I know this guy, this oldspouse. He's a friend.

He's not all that old. He's younger than me, in other words. So of course I think that makes him a young spouse. But I suppose that doesn't make for a very good blog name.

Old or young, I happen to know he makes a very good spouse to his wife, also a friend of mine.

I also happen to know this old spouse writes some funny stuff. I hope you will take the time to stop by and welcome him to bloggyville. I think you'll be glad you did.

forever young

I am slowly recovering from a Fab50 reunion with six of my closest girlfriends from high school, all graduates during the late 70's.

When I mentioned this visit to people, I was met with incredulous looks.

High school? You're still friends with girls from high school?

I do realize that for some people their best-friends-for-life were met in college. For others, as the psychology department head told we incoming graduate students, this would be the place where sacred, lifelong friendships would form.

But for me? It's always been my high school buds. No question about it.

I was really lucky that way. I moved to a new area the summer before my 8th grade year. A few weeks before school started, two nervous, 13-year-old girls knocked on my front door to meet me. The mother of one of the girls made them introduce themselves, I was to find out later. It was probably more our of nosiness about the new family in town than genuine concern for my wellbeing. But whatever the reason, these two girls became my friends and introduced me to a larger group of girls who became some of the best girlfriends I could ask for.

I've met many friends since then who have become very good friends. Excellent friends. Cherished friends. We relate in a way my high school friends and I don't, or can't, or won't ever relate.

But there's something singularly special about hometown friends. All the shared experiences, a shared larger network of friends and towns people, memories of some of life's most difficult heartaches.

Over this past weekend, here we all were, gathered in my home, the first time a few of them had even been to Texas. All of us 49 or 50 years old. (Come think of it, only ONE of us was actually 50. Poor woman. The rest of us will remain forever 49).

But here's the remarkable thing. As I looked at my friends sitting around my living room, or on my back porch with the sunlight fading, or on a river bank cooling our feet in the spring fed water, I was taking them all in.

I saw not their crow's feet, nor their varying shades of color enhanced hair hiding the gray, nor their extra-padded midlines.

What I saw were laughing teenagers. A seventeen year old running beside me during a field hockey game. A young woman chugging down her first beer and wincing at the god-awful-taste-of-it. A girlfriend crying over a boyfriend betrayal, the first of many.

Over the past recent years, when I have met someone new, someone my own age, I would see a middle-aged woman.

But my childhood friends? The years drop away in an instant. Disappear. Gone. In each other's company, for just a weekend, we are ageless, timeless, forever young.

new friend for mom

Girlfriends

Tammy Durham, clay artist

My tween daughters started junior high this year. Lots of new faces. Recently, one of them spent the day with a new friend.

When she got home, she volunteered, "I think you would like Stacie's mom."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. You're both a lot alike."

I took the bait.

"How are we alike?"

"You both get mad easy."

Ah. I'll be sure to hook up with her, then.

Bluebirds

Tammy Durham, clay artist

it's about that time again

The summer is off to a running start between a busier than usual work schedule and kids with busier than usual comings and goings. No time to catch my breath much less catch up on all of the blogs I've been sorely neglecting. I expect more downtime in July but I'm not making any promises.

So far we've had afternoons of swimming at West Enfield, Deep Eddy (below) and Barton Springs Pools. Swimming is not an option, but a necessity, in these June "we've already hit 100 degrees" temps.

The oldest pool in Texas, Deep Eddy Pool is located close to downtown. Like Barton Springs and Enfield Pools, Deep Eddy is spring fed, making for an ultra-refreshing dip. It's also a great place to people watch and catch the latest trends in men's fashionable summertime headwear:

This weekend? We're beating the heat with our annual girls-plus-kids weekend trip for the second best kind of poolside relaxing, here.

And this year I'll be packing the prickly. Normally reserved for martyr syndrome intervention, I'm feeling the need for a little self-administered liquid therrapy.

Find out how you, too, can beat the heat with a pink prickly pear margarita, here.

I will add a major, energy saving modification. The pears can be frozen in the freezer, taken out the morning of your therrapy appointment, placed in a plastic container and left to thaw in your fridge. Retrieve a few hours later to find the dark purple juice oozing from the pears, ready to be strained and poured into the drink of your desire. Much easier.

live from hurricane headquarters

It is nearly 1am. I am hunkered down in my living room with three of my fellow storm trackers: husband SAM and two neighbor friends who joined us for dinner (one who is, in fact, a recent survivor of Gustave as it battered Baton Rouge one short week ago).

We are approximately 200 miles from Galveston, where the eyewall of Ike is hitting the island. But the distance doesn't stop us from feeling that we, ourselves, are in the wall of the eye, right along side Geraldo and the palm tree he is clinging to so desperately.

More frightening for myself, however, is a very recent development. My hurricane tracker compadres have all fallen asleep. Each one of them is in a reclining position conducive to sleep and occasional bursts of snoring, strewn across sofas and one large EZ chair recliner. Unfortunate for me, my storm tracking position is seated upright, clinging to one end of the largest sofa so as not to wake my sleeping couch mate. Not only is this position not conducive to sleep, it is not even comfortable.

So here I sit, lonely and abandoned, confronted with the untenable proposition of waking my neighbors and asking them to please go home so that I can retire to my queen sized post in the bedroom.

Back to you, Geraldo.

short note

I am away visiting the nation's capitol, the state of maryland's capitol, and now, my hometown, a little further north. At the moment I'm waiting for two carloads of my kids' cousins. Some haven't seen each other in two years. My sister is bringing her garden fresh bounty: corn on the cob, tomatoes, lima beans, and cantalope. Plus my sister in law is baking brownies. An elderly neighbor has generously volunteered her swimming pool. She has no idea what she is getting herself into.

I currently owe my internet connection to the fine technology of a state of the art toshiba laptop plus dial up modem. V.....e.....r......r......y.........S.....l......o........w. I'm wanting to check in on my favorite blog sites but it seems to average five minutes per round trip. So I'm giving notice that I will not be stopping by as often as I'd like. Instead I'll just have to make due with the some of the best company I can ask for while munching on some of the best produce the garden state has to offer.