Friends and Connections: Aw Nuts

Indulge me for a minute or two.

Just a quick story about a little thing. Now, in the grand scheme of life...it is nothing. Just a moment passing between two friends. But to me it is more. A life lesson, a split-second that comes out of the air and makes you realize you have a connection to another human being that cannot be defined by a simple word.

If you have read my blogs with any consistency, there are a few characters who pop up from time to time. The drum-mamma is one of them. We used to be family, until one of us decided not to be. We still are family in every way that matters. A morning ritual of checking in via IM, text or phone call, is shoehorned between work schedules and family life. At one point during a mid-morning IM conversation, I casually mention I am eating pistachio nuts and drinking a glass of iced tea. "So am I" she writes back. "Are you freakin' kidding me?" "No."

So there you go. How do you explain two friends about 35 miles apart both deciding to have a pistachio nut and iced tea break at 10:30 in the morning. It's just a witchy bitchy thing we have going. It's also a moment which had us both laughing as we were typing every known acronym we knew, for nearly peeing in your pants.

Lesson for the day. Each 24 hours is made of single moments. They may not all be earth-shattering, but each one is unique.

Enjoy as many as you can.

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Taking Time To Give Thanks

During the course of a lifetime, there are so many things we take for granted. Family, health and time...being the top three. Last night I was able to remind myself that none of the three is a given.

Spent the evening with some old friends who had moved quite a distance away some years ago...mainly I believe for a better climate for one of them.  As it turns out, that was a great decision. Physically, she is in so much better condition than the last time I saw her, it is astounding. Better lifestyle and better living through pharmacology.

On the other hand, her husband developed a life-threatening and life-changing illness. The road has been long and difficult, but hopefully the worst is behind him. In any case, this previously imposing figure is now a shadow of what he was. But he is the same wonderful man with a dry sense of humor, and a man who always brings a smile to my face.

As we sat around my brother's dining room table eating Chinese takeout, the talk never really addressed the illness that is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. We didn't need to. We all know what he had gone through, what lies ahead and what we don't know might lie ahead.

No, last night was just a chance to see the faces that, just like ours, have changed so much over the years. A time to drink a glass a wine and to share a meal. A simple night, with simple conversation. A time to catch up and enjoy the trash talk and humor which defines our "family."

A time to remember that family, health and time are not to be taken for granted. They are to be taken as gifts meant to be appreciated daily.

This is my way of giving thanks.

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