50th Bridesmaids style

Well this is much less enjoyable than bouncing puppy rap, until you know the backstory.  Mary Ann and I have the same house # but live on different streets.  Fun.  I am on the corner of the culdesac and my side entry garage faces her house.  We sometimes get each other's mail.  She was texting me to find out if we had a VERY important delivery.  Coach and I were meeting with our financial adviser at our kitchen table, so I didn't respond right away.  Curly was sitting at the snack bar - you can kinda see her arm up on the right side.  Mary Ann came tearing out of her house, checked her mailbox, and then stormed over to our front door and rang the doorbell and grilled the kids (cuz Coach and I were busy in the meeting) about whether or not they saw her package.  This all happened 2 minutes after she sent me a text.  She did not give me much of a chance to respond! 

Full disclosure - earlier in the summer we got a delivery from Amazon.  We don't use our front door much (cuz side entry garage) and we didn't notice the package.  It eventually made it in the house and sat on the counter top waiting for someone to claim it.  I thought a kid ordered a book for school, but it was right after Vancouver and Ed was getting his wisdom teeth out and Lad was getting into trouble with us, so it sort of fell off my radar and got buried (as things on my counter tend to do).  Turns out it was Mary Ann's daughter's book and she was hot to trot that it was at our house for days.  #great-neighbors

So that was the longest caption I may have ever written.  I was saving that pic to accompany my DMV nightmare story that I still have yet to share even though it happened in early August.  I knew this pic required a lengthy explanation.  Look forward to the DMV part of that day- it's literally UNREAL.

Anyway, thank you Mary Ann, aka world's worst neighbor, for that intro to my friendship saga.  (If you are new here and unfamiliar with Mary Ann - I suggest you do a search on the blog for Mary Ann stories.  You will be appalled.  Guaranteed.  Many, many links I could post.  One is titled 'cup o sugar'  - or something).  Aside from Mary Ann, I swear I DO have friends.  

As an aside to my aside, Mary Ann just so happens to be good friends with Cranky, who I highlighted in my last post.  If I ever write the book that I keep mulling over in my head that I call 'With Friends Like These', then you will get a detailed account of their nonsense.  I don't know that they have always been close, but at this point I don't think there is anyone else that can really tolerate either of them and their anal-ness for very long.

My friends are great and I can call them in a pinch and they would bale me out or lend me a cup of sugar, or listen to me rant, etc.  I tend to choose great listeners as friends because I talk a lot.  I would not trade my friends in for anything.  Hello Becky and Delilah! 

Here's the thing.  My group of friends is an eclectic group.  They do not know one another - at least not well,  Most have never met.  They have shown up at different stages of my life, and they rarely overlap.  This goes back to the issue that Coach and I have with couples that I touched on in the previous post.  Like Coach and I, I lack a 'group.'

On the 2nd to last day of this year, I will turn 50.  I am not all that worked up about it - but hell, I just turned 49 so give me time.  Or, maybe I will just shrug it off.  That sounds like a good plan and that is more my style.  

Over the years I have known/heard of people who have done a girls' weekend to celebrate their 50th.  Somehow this has become a thing in my mind.  I now identify my 50th with a destination surrounded by my besties, much like the little guys I sit for who from time to time have believed that a birthday is a place.  Like 'Chuckie Cheese' is a birthday.  

After reading many people's year end blog recaps and their resolutions, I admit to feeling a bit like 'Dang, so many people out there have a group, or people they do things with on the regular.'  People they vacation with, or get weekly coffee with, or celebrate New Year's Eve with.  

I admit to thinking more and more about my 50th birthday as if it were a girls' weekend.  If it were a destination, well then . . .  the closest thing that comes to mind is a scene from 'Bridesmaids.'  Like what would it look like if my friends who have mostly never met all became acquainted on this imaginary birthday weekend.  It makes me think of Ghostbusters when the guys say clear your mind and the one buster can't help but think of the marshmallow man!  

I picture my close friend from 2nd grade.  Marge never married and she is incredibly sheltered.  She is a great friend, and I love her dearly but I think she still cringes a bit if I drop the f-bomb in her presence.  

Then there is my babysitting compadre who I have been hanging out with for the last 3 or 4 years.  She cannot keep her mind out of the gutter, and she cracks me up.  When she comes over with the tots she sits for and I am feeding a fussy toddler, I say 'Put it in your mouth!  Put it in your mouth!' and Becky CANNOT help herself:  'That's what he said.'  It's like an automatic, and I thoroughly enjoy her.    

Then there are other straight laced mom types - some on the quiet side and some that can party with the best of them.  Some might be up for drinking games and some might be more content to sip a glass of wine and chit chat.  

I don't keep in touch with any high school friends anymore, except for Drew one of my high school buddies who lives in New York - he would NOT enjoy a girls' weekend.  My very best hs friend stopped talking to me a few years ago.  She lives out east now and she 'tired' of me and no longer wanted to be bothered with the frustrations caused by my middle child/family dilemmas.  I guess.  She never really said.  That hurt.  To me, those were really not the kind of reasons that you ditch a best friend after 30 plus years of friendship.  

My college friends are scattered all over the country, which is a little odd considering that I went to school in South Bend and TYPICALLY many SMC grads end up in the Chicago area.  Not my peeps though.

I love, love, love my Irish dancing friend moms, but they don't live really close to get together regularly.  They would be a hoot at my 50th destination b-day for sure.  They remain the best thing about attending long, grueling days at dancing competitions.  Bummer that they will not be in Ireland in April.  

I believe similar situations interfered with my girlfriend friendships as they did our couple friendships.  Changing schools wreaked havoc on my social life.  Kudos to Delilah for still keeping up/putting up with me even though our kids have not been in school for almost 7 years, and even though she always remembers my birthday and I have NOT remembered hers (this is the last year of that nonsense though! Watch out October!).

I attribute some of the shifts in friendship to people being busy and being pulled in different directions based on their kids' activities.  As with so many other peeps, they have their stuff and I have mine.  I have also noticed that I see some friends less because their youngest kids have graduated from our high school.  Our high school parenting years will not in the near future.  

Then, of course, there is all of you!  How fun/weird would it be to plan a meetup with blogging buddies?  My 50th is as good a time as any, don't you agree?  Who's in?  

Bridesmaids style 50th here I come!