Fiends
Once upon a time, my friend Beth sent out a note about her upcoming 30th birthday celebration. She closed the note with “you’re all great fiends” or some similar sentiment. And yes, she left the ‘r’ out of friends.
It stuck. Ever since that note, my circle of friends has been known as Fiends. When our fiend Julie passed away, we started a Yahoo! group to keep in touch and email daily doses of support to everyone in the group. It was a perfect way to keep in touch, especially with those that were far away. Those first few months after Julie’s passing were difficult for us all, but having the support of each other got us through it. Slowly.
Life has been moving very fast for the Fiends lately and we don’t spend as much time together as we once did. It’s hard to get us all in the same place at the same time. But we’re still close and would drop anything to help one of us in need.
Tonight I got to spend time with 2 fiends, Tracey and June. We have all had some stress in our lives lately and it was good to just be together and talk about things, catching up with what’s been going on in each other’s lives. Tonight we didn’t want the loud “nn-tch nn-tch nn-tch” music of a bar, or to get all dressed up to go somewhere fancy. We just wanted to be. So we went to an old skool type place, that caters to a more mature crowd (the Blue Hairs, if you will).
Because I had already eaten a dinner of stir-fried chicken, asparagus and brown rice, I forwent (is that the past tense of forgo?) the meal and went along for the company, my camera in tow. I still had to shoot my last submission for the 7 Days group in Flickr. While they dined on the fine cuisine (note sarcasm), I had a glass of Cabernet. And because this was a night where comfort food was much in need, the girls ordered hot fudge sundaes. I still nursed my wine, and rather than knocking them over the head with the jar of sugar and stealing their sundaes, I shot a photo of one instead. Much fewer calories that way. The best part of the night though, was when we were discussing our trails and tribulations, the song that our beloved fiend Julie asked to be played at her funeral (Green Day’s Good Riddance/Time of Your Life) came on over the sound system. For some reason, that song comes on at the most appropriate times. And since we all became such close fiends because Julie brought us together, it was perfect that the song played tonight. It was like a little “Hey” from Julie. Interesting that I haven’t heard that song in awhile, nor had I spent quality time with my fiends in much too long.
Below is a photo of the delectable hot fudge sundae that I did not eat (nor did I taste! How’s that for will power?).
And this here is my last self-portrait of the week. Next go round, you should play with us. Click on the link to in my sidebar to join the 7 Days group. You’ll be glad you did!
