Props to Gir' Friens

Yeah, I’m just trying to be current with that title. As I age, such attempts will probably get worse and, if possible, more pitiful.

January sucks for me even when I try to convince myself otherwise. I’ve been having a bad week for a month and that’s not a typo. For some reason, during these first two months of the New Year, no matter how I try, I can’t suspend disbelief and pretend that life is all A-o-kay. Jack is out of town; I’m working 12-plus hour days, I can’t get clients to pay, and I’m trying to remain patient with two geriatric dogs. They’re old but not senile. They know if I’m on the phone with a client, I’ll feed them copious amounts of meat and cheese to keep them quiet and thus maintain my professionalism. (Yeah, right.)

Then at night, while Jack is away, Max (the Lab with the baritone) barks constantly at me for two hours straight. “What are you saying Lasssie? You want to kill me? Do it; do it now and quickly! I’m beggin’ here.” Then quickly he goes to sleep and I wake up hourly to check his breathing the rest of the night.

Anyway, I allow myself a quarterly crying jag. Not that I schedule it; I just put it off.

I was in the midst, when most-wonderful friend Jill called. She probably thought a family member had passed because I seldom allow ANYONE to witness such episoodies.
She rebuffed my protests and came over with a salad and a bottle ‘o vino. We consumed both, finished off some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, and watched a movie where we laughed our butts off at our own comments. Jill destroyed my view of Christian Bales by saying he has Red Skelton teeth and tongue. Oh my God, he does! So in the movie, when an attractive woman talks to him about performing a certain sexual act, it’s all ruined. I can only think of him thanking her with a “”God Bleth!”

We laughed so much that I temporarily forgot the fact that I’m an aging, semi-employed, half-a-hundred year-old woman with highly limited prospects. Thank you my friend!!

Then, after ten years of separation, that crazy Denise called and we arranged a lunch meeting. Our history could be described as hilarious and/or dysfunctional but we’ve never had an ill word between us. We picked up right where we dropped off. “I ordered their most expensive glass of wine at 11:00 a.m.,” she told me when I met her. “I don’t know anything about wine, but I’d rather they think I’m a connoisseur than a common drunk!” Funny line and funny person.

Denise, you’re a hoot and though you always seem to have moola at your disposal, which you always generously offer to bestow upon me, I would recommend you for a reality show any day.

Bottom line: thank God for girlfriends. The true ones truly save our lives from minute to minute and year to year or even when we least expect it. I hope that someday I can do the same for them in return.
God Bleth!