Ode To Girlfriends

As many of you know I lived with my In-laws basement for a little over a year...and SURVIVED! Once a month I would go out to dinner with my girlfriends. One such night I forgot to spread the word in the Smith family household that I was going to be out that night. I arrived home at 3 A.M. to find the lights out, the door locked and my phone dead. Feeling quite sheepish that I had stayed out so late I nearly decided to bed down on the deck, rather than go knocking on the door and alerting anyone to my late night shenanigans. Being me I just couldn't do it though. I imagined wild dogs sniffing me out and dragging me back to the Tremonton wilds for dinner.

I then made like Tom Cruise and went on Mission Impossible - finding an alternative entryway into the house. My first move was to try to make my way through the rose garden to the window of our bedroom and knocking on the window until my husband woke up. I couldn't get through that rose jungle without seriously scratching myself, and besides I still didn't want my husband to know I'd been out so late. Finally with spy music playing in my mind I entered the storage room beneath the deck and then through the spider infested loose window into another storage room before opening the door and sneaking past my brother-in-law sleeping on the couch. The next morning I confessed to the whole thing anyway. My mother-in-law (and I truly love her, I do) who has a way of making you feel guilty even if you haven't done anything wrong looked me in the eye and said, "And what were you doing until three in the morning?"

I have many blessings in my life, and if I have any that are especially rare and beautiful it is the love and friendship of a particular group of girls that grew up with me. Deemed simply, The Clarkston Girls, we are a crop of girls born in Clarkston in the 81/82 year. These girls I've known since I was 2. I think my first conversation with many of them went like this:

Them: "Can I pull on your Laura Ingalls pioneer braids?"
Me:"I guess so...as long as you promise to be my friend forever."
Them: "Deal."

And so it began. The answer to my mother-in-laws question was simple, "We were talking." For those who don't have a bunch of girls they've known, competed over boys with, fought with, made up with, gone through ugly awkward stages with, and loved for nearly 26 years it might be hard to fathom how a conversation can begin at 6 P.M. and go strong for another nine hours.

There is something about knowing the same oddball cast of characters from a podunk town and suffering through nearly two hours on a bus every day for thirteen years that really bonds a group of people together. The fact that they know your family, the associated baggage of said family, and witnessed many of your most embarrassing moments from the time you peed your pants during a T-Ball game at age six, to the time you decided wearing white pants was a good idea while you were on your period and the whole darn cast of Martin Harris: The Man Who Knew probably was privy to watching you skip around the stage singing and oblivious to your painfully apparent faux pas.

They don't look at you funny when you call the post office, THE mail, or shake in your boots over the mere mention of the local horror myth Swish-Swash. They don't judge you over the hours you've spent driving on the back roads, wading in City Creek (Creek being pronounced Crick) the mucky stinky stuff between your toes either being decaying plant life or cow manure from upstream, or taking a dip in your neighbors new round circular cow trough on a hot summer day. They get just as big of a kick out of watching local kids chase chickens, rabbits and pigs at the annual town celebration Pony Express Days as you do.

Over the years they've encouraged you to date a guy, and then encouraged you to dump him. They have forgiven you when you've said mean things to them during your teen angst years and you've forgiven them. They've stood by you when you've done something idiotic. They've cried with you when your heart was broken, and when something was so funny the tears streamed down your face.

They've known you single. They've known you married. And they've known you pregnant. One day you notice that those girls are no longer girls but women. Not only women, but remarkable ones. Dedicated mothers, compassionate friends and exceptional women. They've defended your weight gain - "Hey, she JUST had a baby. So lay off!" they are courteous enough not to add that that baby is four years old. They tell you your husband must be an idiot if he hasn't noticed lately how gorgeous/talented/smart you are. They love you not out of some sense of familial loyalty but because they choose to love you when they could just stop returning your calls all together.

These are they types of girls that you can have a conversation with for nine hours...and longer...26 years. These are the girls that make the 3 A.M. bed time and the associated I-can't-stay-up-this-late-anymore-I'm-nearly-thirty hangover the next day worth it. Here's to girlfriends, and the to the hope that we'll have another 26 years to talk, laugh and encourage one another. I love you girls, thanks for standing by me!

Beatiful Flower

True Story

I'm just getting over what may or may not have been the swine flu. I figure it was payback for cracking numerous bad jokes about the Swine Flu and before that the Bird Flu. In both cases my husband lectured me on how serious the situation was and I shouldn't joke about the (Ba-Gock!) Bird Flu.

I was stricken while staying with my parents and when it became clear I was not well - fever 1o2.5, splitting headache, wishing for a head amputation - I was subjected to my husband and my father arguing over who was going to keep me while I was sick. My husband pleaded with me to stay the heck away and my dad kept offering to take me home. Thank heavens for mothers! My Mother stepped in and insisted she take care of me and my daughter while I alternated between chills and sweating on the couch.

While my mother is indeed a saint I couldn't help remembering an extremely awkward and self-esteem damaging phone call between us when I was in the throws of yet another cold. The phone call in question happened a couple of years back. It goes as follows:

Ring, ring, ring.

Me: "Hello?"
Hesitant pause.
Me: "Hello?"
Mom: "Is Denise there?"
Me: "Mom, it's me."
Mom: "Denise?"
Me: "Yes, Mom it's me, Denise."
Mom: "Oh! I thought you were a man. (insert my Mom's audacious laugh here) I wondered what man you had over, because I knew it wasn't Brig."
Click.
Mom: "Denise? Denise are you there?"

I admit to be self-conscious about my deeper voice. Lawsies, add it to the list, right. But apparently when I have a cold my own mother believes I must be having an illicit affair with a strange, deep voiced man before she recognizes the voice of her beloved daughter.

Veterans

My Grandpa - Leon Stewart Cooper Jr. He was a West Texas boy just out of high school when he came to California looking for job opportunities. He got a job at Douglas Aircraft Company, met a beautiful Mormon girl and the rest as they say is history. He enlisted in the Air Corps in 1944. The war would end before he saw combat. I'm grateful to him and to my Grandma for making the kind of sacrifice to decide to enlist during war time. What I remember about my Grandpa is how soft spoken and easy going he was. His Texas accent and always saying, "Yes, Ma'am," to my Grandma. His genes are also a big contributor to this mop of curls I've been carrying around on my head since day one, as you can see. I truly believe that the generation that survived and thrived through the Great Depression and World War II were one of a kind and made a huge difference for the better in the world we live in today. Thanks Grandpa.
My Dad - Daniel Craig Cooper. He was drafted and then joined the Navy during the Vietnam War. My parents were high school sweethearts who had been dating for a couple of years by the time he joined the Navy. He served for four years. I appreciate the service he gave his country and especially admire the job so many young men like him had to do in the face of public criticism for that war. The heated opinions of the public spilled over in the unfair way the military was treated upon their return from service. None of our men serving in uniform should have ever been treated so poorly for doing what their country had asked them to do. Thank you, Dad and I love you! Happy Veteran's Day!

I'm Sorry, This One is Hysterical!

"They have candy just for me!"

Ava kept saying, "I can't believe it. They have candy just for me." We heard it about fifteen times on our trick or treating around town. I wish I would have brought my camera as the people in the neighborhood handing out candy were dressed up as well. My favorite was a French noblewoman with a white wig that reached up a foot or two on her head and her husband Gene Simmons from the rock band Kiss.

Can I tell you how sweet my little girl is? She told me that day, "You're a good mommy and a good person." Oh man. My heart melted. An hour later she shouted at me to get out of her face. Eh, sugar and spice I guess. I'll take it though.
Contemplating the mysterious red berries on this tree. We don't know what kind of tree it is, but we like it.
Sweet Ava. There once was a girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad, she was horrid.
All in all it was an incredibly fruitful night. We went first to Foothill Village trick or treating and that fill her bag half full. Then we came home and had dinner and went out into the neighborhood. They really go all out. Since the houses are so close together it didn't take long to take away quite the haul. Back in the day when I was a witch for the fourth consecutive year as a child it took walking through half of Clarkston to get the kind of loot that Ava got in just a block and a half. The perks of being a city kid I guess.

On The Street Where You Live