I Have the Best Friends

Today's post is all about my amazing friends.  I talk a lot about things that happen and things that I'm doing, but I rarely talk about things that just are.  So today I wanted to do just that.  I promise to make this short and not so mushy, but this really does deserve some attention.  I have the best friends in the entire world!  I mean, they are always there for me, no matter how long it's been since we've last talked.  These are the kinds of friends you hope to have 1 or 2 of in your entire life; I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by a large group of friends this amazing!  As you guys read in my last post, I'm planning my cousin's first ever actual birthday party -- something we all take for granted until you realize some people just aren't lucky enough to have birthday parties (for financial reasons or otherwise).  So this weekend while I was attending my 10-year high school reunion (seriously, where did the time go?!?!), I was having lunch with some friends from high school and we were hanging out before the reunion started so they could help me plan the birthday party.

**I feel I should mention here, that one of these friends (my old college roommate) helped me and my mom out of a bind about a month ago when I called her on a Saturday to see if she could come stay with my cousin on Tuesday while my parents were out of town since she didn't have her driver's license yet and still had to go to school and band practice.  Needless to say, even with only a 3-day notice, my friend didn't hesitate to say yes.  That's true friendship right there - helping out on short notice without expecting anything in return!

Anyway, back to this past weekend.  We were all sitting on the porch while I was going through my checklist (I'm mildly obsessive about lists and schedules and really anything to help me keep track of things without having to remember stuff...even though I have a partially photographic memory...), and out of the blue, my friend from high school (who, coincidentally, is dating my old college roommate whom I didn't know until we roomed together in college...small world, right?) yelled, "What are we doing for food?!?!"  Since he was having a nerd moment with my husband talking about movies and nerdy card games and such, I didn't realize that he was referring to the birthday party all of us girls were discussing...so I reminded him that there would be food at the reunion.  At this point in time, he looked confused (probably less so than me, at the time), and said, "No, for the party.  I make a great jerk chicken.  Oh, I know!  I'll grill some pineapple too.  Maybe some mango.  I'll need to marinate the chicken for a day or two, so I'll need a head-count by about Wednesday so I can get everything I need.  And we'll need to come over early that morning so I can set up the grill and we can help decorate until the party starts."  I hadn't even given much thought to food except that it needed to be beachy-type food.  I was going back and forth about pulled pork (Hawaiian Luau style) or cucumber sandwiches on croissants (upscale-beach-resort style) or looking up traditional foods in other beach locales.

**Also worth mentioning here is the fact that I have a HUGE space to decorate - a deck and an attached screened in porch.  So, to save time and money on decorations (and also to give it a more personalized beach feel aside from the tried and true typical "luau party" - you know the one...we've all been to that party where someone forgot to plan ahead of time and ran to get decorations the morning of the party and just let Party City vomit all over their party space...something I refuse to do...) we're going with a more upscale "beach resort" themed party with a tiki bar for food and photo booth stuff (I mean, what beach resort is complete without a tiki bar, right?).  But I digress...

The fact that he just jumped in there and took that off my plate, especially since I didn't have to delegate that duty to anyone (and I'm already swamped with everything else that's going on -- keep in mind I have 2 jobs, I live 2 states away, I'm trying to find my cousin some scholarships for college since no one saved up for it and we don't want her to have huge student loan debts like her mom, and I'm trying to coordinate all of this simultaneously), is phenomenal!  And you know, that's just the kind of person he is.  So now, I have a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders as far as planning this thing, and my friends have all met my cousin (they remember when she lived with us 10 years ago when I was a senior...mostly because she was my 7-year old shadow while she was with us) and they live right up the road if she ever needs anyone.  And they really enjoyed hanging out with her and they even gave her their phone numbers in case she ever needed to call them for anything.  I didn't have to ask.  They just did it.  What can I say?  I have the most wonderful friends anyone could ever ask for!