FRIENDS

I have seen every episode of Friends. It’s true. The Vegas episode happened at the end of my sophomore year of high school. My parents didn’t like the show so I would watch it in my room on their black and white TV. The next year, we got a mini satellite dish and my parents ended up watching it with me. I watched it at 5:00 and at 5:30 and we’d watch the new episodes every Thursday at 8 PM. In college, I skipped the basketball games to watch Friends. This was, of course, way before Hulu existed and we could watch current episodes online. Sure I missed out on one of my university’s main events, but I stayed connected to my loyal friends.

There’s something about Chandler’s nonstop jokes and Phoebe’s clairvoyance that makes me feel at home. I’ve always wanted a group of friends like the ones in Friends. But I’ve always moved around too much or been too busy to constantly hang out with a large group of friends.

I’m watching Friends right now. It’s been the perfect Saturday: watching Friends, editing photos, chatting on Russian facebook, and baking. Ah. Good day at home.

friends and shoes

And here's a screen shot of my first "thought to ponder." Hmmm... why do we have such different tastes? My answer: don't ask. Just enjoy the friendship. :)

SCHOOL'S OUT

When I graduated from high school NINE years ago, our class had a theme song. It wasn’t all that original. I’m sure many high school graduating classes have celebrated their new beginnings with this song.

Well, school is officially out for yours truly. It’s been a rigorous year and in actuality, I have yet to complete my master’s thesis (or project, in my case), but all the same, classes are done. This is exciting, mainly because I have been so fed up with classes. It’s been a rough, stressful, even emotional year. But I’ve learned a bunch and now, it’s time for some celebrating!

My best friends from DHS and I are headed off to Spokane, WA to visit the fifth chica in our clique. It is sure to be a fabulous trip. We’re gonna hike, make soap, talk, and get tattoos. I’m sure we’ll do more than that, but those are the highlights. I’ve been looking forward to this trip ever since Sarah first suggested the idea on Facebook in the fall. And at long last, the trip is finally here. It’ll be grand.

The trip and the tattoo are rewards of sorts. I’ve made it through four quarters of grad school relatively unscarred. I did all my work, turned it in on time, and got above average grades (which for grad school means I’m just getting by). But I did it. I deserve this.

Poka for now.

Letter Writing

A blue metal box holds my hopes and dreams. They stay there until a man wearing navy blue slacks, a light blue button up and a blue baseball cap comes to carry them away. My dreams are thrown into a plastic box and taken to the factory of correspondence where they are sorted by two letters and five numbers.

Within two to three days, my dreams will be sitting in another metal box. Sometimes, the box will be tall and skinny among a sea of similar boxes. And sometimes the box will be big and fat where it sits on the side of the road all alone.

When my friend opens the box and pulls out the envelope, everything is as it should be.

Ah, the Little Mermaid song

I’m listening to Part of Your World on my computer. I recently downloaded most all of my CDs to my hard drive so as to rid myself of all extraneous items in my apartment. A bunch of CDs sitting in a box aren’t doing me any good, right?

Part of Your World is from the Disney Princess Collection CD. It has special memories for me. Many are from my childhood, when I’d hang out with my cousins and we’d sing our hearts out. I’m pretty sure we could have started a band if our parents would have put a little money in it. ☺

I think my favorite, most recent memory of this song happened in 2007. I was still living in Ukraine. I’d gone to Bar (a town in Vinnytska Oblast) to visit my friend, Sheryl. She looked through my iPod and found this song. She blasted it and sang to the whole thing. It was AMAZING. The best part was that she got down on the ground and acted like she was Ariel on the rock. She even pushed out her hands as if they were the waves shooting out from behind her. I laughed harder than I had in months.

I love memories like this. They really help make crummy days like today just a little more happy.

Cooking on a Hot Plate

A few months ago, my brother and his partner bought me a hotplate. They thought it was horrible that I lived with only a microwave and a hand-me-down toaster oven. It was, but I made it work.

The hotplate was from Freddies. It has one burner. (I didn’t want the double burner one, not enough counter space.)

Tonight, the hotplate got a workout.

I wanted to make dinner for my friend. She has made me food so many times. It was about time I returned the favor. I also invited my other friend, her roommate. Dinner was set for eight o’clock.

I got to cooking the meat at about 7:30. The pan was small, good enough to cook two eggs in. I had to cook the meat in shifts. After that, it was time for the pasta. I boiled the pasta in a soup pot. It’s a small soup pot. The family size can of Campbells would overfill it. The pasta got cooked in shifts as well.

Then it was time for the corn. The corn was cooked on the top of the pasta remnants stuck to the bottom of the pan. (Oops. Smokehouse flavor, anyone?)

Then, I took some pasta, a little meat, and sauce and heated it in that same mini pot to heat it up because at this point, all the ingredients were becoming cold.

It was quite a project.

The girls ate my sister’s Oreo cookies while they waited for the food.

Cooking dinner was an experience. I’ve proven that, okay, maybe I CAN cook, at least a little bit. And a hotplate is in fact useful.

Ketchup Queen

As a child, I disliked ketchup. It tasted yucky. It wasn't until I was in late grade school that I started to taste the red sauce. Maybe I thought it looked too much blood. Or I could have thought it was too salty. All I really remember is that it was a girl named Abby who got me to eat the ketchup. Our church kids' group went to McDonalds for special outings and Abby ALWAYS had ketchup. I tried it once, wanting to be as cool as my new brown-haired friend. It was okay, I guess, I have been a ketchup person ever since. But better than that, I've stayed friends with that ketchup-loving cool girl. We ended up hanging out in school. We were even best friends in high school.

It's crazy how food can meld a memory and bring people together.

Losing Touch

Many times in my life, I have left the people closest to me. Usually it was for good reason, I was going to college, it was time to study abroad, or my Peace Corps service was starting. I've just always been the one who leaves. And those people who I was close to asked me to "keep in touch." I'm good at keeping in touch. I write letters, I blog, I even send out a Christmas letter.

But there have been a few times when my attempt to "keep in touch" has felt a little strange. After a year or two of not speaking to someone, I have in many cases whipped out my stationary and drafted an informative and friendly letter. The recipient receives the letter and wonders, "what is going on? I haven't heard from her in forever. Why is she writing now?" Was the request to keep in touch insincere? Is it bad to try to maintain old friendships?

I understand the priciple of losing touch. If I lived in the days of wagon trains and five pound bags of flour, I would have left my parents' house once and never have seen them again. I'm glad I never endured that kind of a parting.

I like to be the one with the wordy letters. Writing is fun. Why not send a letter to a person I grew up with? Isn't it better to send a note than to wonder what could have happened should I have kept in touch?

I like to write. This is how I keep acquainted with old friends.