Here is a small sketch of me and my friend Sally, getting ready for our weekend trip together. OK - perhaps not. Perhaps the reality is that - though we met as college freshman roommates when we were both 17 years old, we don't quite look like this anymore. OK, fine, we never did.
What's more, we have both been sick all week - Sally, languishing at her home in Charlotte, North Carolina, and me, still feeling pretty terrible, up here in New York. But we have a tradition, damn it, and we're not breaking it today.
Other than that room we shared freshman year in college, Sally and I have never lived even remotely close to each other. Soon after graduation, she began traveling the world, while I began producing children. Our lives took completely different turns. Sally is one of those people whose address I never write down in pen, because it changes so often. She also happens to be one of the people I love the most in the world.
The two of us have always made a point to carve out a little time to spend together each year. She knows I hate to fly, so she tends to come north, but not always. Please try to picture us in a cabin in West Virgina, whitewater rafting in Tennessee, at a spa in Connecticut, on the beach in Rhode Island, in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania (don't even ask) - most of the time laughing so hard that we are snorting.
So I'm still feverish and she has been on antibiotics for days. Our plan was to go hiking together in Vermont. In two hours I am picking her up at the Hartford, CT airport and then we are heading another two and a half hours North to Woodstock. I can't imagine how we are going to actually do this, feeling as weak as we do. But I'm confident that about 7 hours from now, we will be at the small inn, laughing so hard that no noise will be coming out.
I've got no trouble picturing that at all! You'll just need to take occasional breaks to nap. Y'all have a great time! You know what they say about laughter being the best medicine. xoxoxox
Posted by: merwolf | August 07, 2008 at 09:18 AM