The good old days when we lived ¼ mile apart. When we spent every waking (and often sleeping) moment outside of work and school together. Back when we had our youth and the desperation of a meager paycheck to get out of bed at 4:00 a.m. to catch a train downtown together for our 5:30 a.m. jobs.
I shared my first glass (ok, bottle) of wine with Sarah after much deliberation and a conscious decision that we were grown up enough to start drinking like classy women. We were smart enough not to buy wine from a box but we were thrifty enough to realize that you could get much more wine for the same price out of a jug. Hence, our introduction to the world of red wine began with Red Rose. We were so proud of our new found drink of choice and the “grown-up” status that this symbolic drink brought us (or so we thought). We had a long way to go but being naïve we thoroughly enjoyed every last drop of hundreds of bottles of Red Rose. I have no idea when or where we gave up Red Rose and moved on to “real” wine – but those Red Rose days were some of the best - even if the wine was less than mediocre.
And then Sarah moved downtown but the time we spent together didn’t at all diminish. I had a key to her place. I spent every free moment between (and sometimes during) classes at her apartment. Her place was my first stop every morning for a cup of coffee and my last stop each day before I left for home. We stayed weekends at her small apartment and never fell out of touch for more than an 8 hour stretch to sleep during the week. After the Christmas tree episode of 2007 I knew exactly where to go when I just had to leave – straight to Sarah’s for some Red Rose. I was there when she broke her finger. Sarah’s house was the first place we went to show off my shiny ring after we got engaged. Every holiday was a sleepover and we were simply an extension of each other’s day to day lives.
And then we graduated… and got real jobs. And real life began… our time together was minimal. We were busy. We lived far apart. But I think we both wished we were back in school just so we could relive those many shared moments all over again.
So, this last weekend I was lucky enough to be Warren’s stand-in for the Friday night Blazer game. I met Sarah after work downtown for some red wine, an exciting Blazer game and plenty of time to catch up on our busy lives. We both immediately decided it was a red wine night and promptly made our way to the bar. Last month when I was Warren's stand-in at a Blazer game we had beer night so we thought we’d shake it up a bit. We spent the first half of the game yelling updates on our lives over noise of the cheering crowd. The second half of the game got intensely exciting so we clapped until our hands were numb and cheered until our voices were hoarse. I dropped Sarah off at home after the game and proceeded to spend the next two hours continuing our catch-up dialogue.
Inspired by our splendid time together we decided to do it all over again on Saturday night. And Sarah is not one to disappoint, so when Jenny called needing a last minute babysitter Sarah packed up Ruby and Trey and make the trek to my house to continue our celebratory weekend – what are two more kids when you already have three?
Hope bossed Ruby around – telling her what she could and couldn’t play with. Ruby so politely obliged and we let the girls run through the house in their dress up gear with the boys always trailing behind in a constant effort to keep up – all while Sarah and I resumed our conversation and shared some cabernet (yes, we no longer drink Red Rose).
The kids all played so well together (except for the time when we found Nico sitting on top of Trey prying the sippy cup from his hands – but Trey must be used to the abuse from Ruby because he simply acted as if it was all par for the course). The time flew by and before we knew it, it was 10:00 p.m. and not one child had had a breakdown. We had great conversation along with some smooth red wine and the children genuinely had a blast. We ended the evening declaring that we should do this more often – I mean, after all it would give Jenny and Jason a night out every so often and with the kids pre-occupied with friends their age our conversations are unlimited and usually uninterrupted – giving us plenty of time to catch up and re-live the good old days.
As it turns out, the good old days with Sarah are not gone. They are just fewer and far between but they always bring me just as much happiness and have us sharing our dreams, our frustrations, our daily joys, inspirational stories… and our time together is always guaranteed to result in some belly wrenching, tear producing, cheek cramping laughter.
And just so you all can catch a glimpse into our evening this is Sarah preparing to change a poopy diaper…
And this is how we kept the kids entertained…
Sarah was itching all night to brush Trey’s curls just to see what would happen… I wish I had a picture of the afro! It reminded me of my 2nd grade school picture… when Mom was “experimenting” with my hair.
Jenny, you’ve been forewarned that whenever Sarah babysits my children always end up with Mohawks or shark hair – Sarah has a fascination with creating random hair dos on unsuspecting children. I think this obsession was bestowed upon Sarah by my mother who continually insisted on home perming my already coarse, frizzy hair. My childhood pictures are all seriously lacking in the hair style department. The curls were just too tempting for Sarah to stand by idly. But I grew up as the recipient of Sarah’s hair obsession (including some bangs the she trimmed within ¼ of my scalp) and my mother’s home perms - and I’m no worse for the wear so there will hopefully be no long term damage :)
Does life get any better than this?
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