What Do You Talk About?

I've been fascinated lately with Bridget's friendships. She squeals with delight when she sees Clara or even hears Clara's name. Every time we get in the car she asks me if we're going to "Josie's house." Once she's with these friends, she tries to take their toys or just plays next to them. (Meh, she can do that at home with me, right?) I've seen kids older than Bridget playing together and now I wonder what they do, what they talk about.
I've had the same best friend for the last 29 years (AAAAHHHH!). We met in afternoon kindergarten at Oakley Elementary. Her name is Kellie. (This is our first grade class. I'm on the front row with the red sweater, plaid skirt, red socks and ugly tennis shoes that made me cry because I knew I would be on the front row for pictures. Kellie is wearing the awesome boots and red dress with the white apron, also on the front row.) I spoke to her this morning and she mentioned talking to her first grade class about being my friend since we were in kindergarten. One of the girls in her class was confused - what could we possibly do together? Perhaps when you're in first grade you "play" with your friends. When you're old enough to be a school teacher, there's nothing to do. As always, Kellie helped me remember what we used to do as children that made us friends. We spied on Charlotte. We stole Paul's shoes and threw them over the fence while he was crossing the monkey bars. We stood next to each other with our noses on the 100 year old grade school building. We lip synced to the "Grease" soundtrack (the vinyl record, of course) in Kellie's basement. We watched "Little House on the Prairie" and "The Muppet Show." We put on Kellie's older sisters' make-up and shoes. We pretended to be Nancy Drew and Trixie Beldon. We had a restaurant in the sage brush near her house. Her little brother, Kenny, was our butler, our customer at the restaurant, and (conveniently named) the voice of Ken when we were playing Barbies.

It turns out the girl in Kellie's class should be confused. What do we do together now that we can't "play"? We were room mates in college and we spent most of our time together trying to make each other laugh. I found this photo of us doing our best imitation of the two dumbest girls in our History class. (One was always blankly staring and the other one had a disturbing obsession with her fingernails.) We tried to schedule classes together so that we could sit next to each other and pass notes. The notes never had anything to do with the lecture. Again, we were trying to get the other one to laugh out loud and draw attention to herself. The funny thing was, if we had a class together we always did well in that class. Studying was more fun when we could do it together.

Even college was 15 years ago (AAAAHHHH!). These days we call each other once a week and we have overnight visits once a year. We talk about our kids, the people we both know, our memories. Nobody makes me laugh like Kellie. So, here's to friendships in all their forms. And a special toast to Kellie, or as I called her in the old days, "Me 'n Kellie."