Can you pee?

Friends make you smile.  Friends make you laugh.  Friends have your back.  Friends feel comfortable.  Friends share.  Friends make life worthwhile.

I was over in my old neighborhood last week and decided to drop in on a couple of ladies I’ve known for a very long time.  They both looked after me like a caring parent while I was a single mom.  Betty and Bob had made sure my youngest had eyeglasses when he needed them.  (When Cheezy lost those glasses, and after we’d said the family find-it prayer, a little kid knocked at the door going house to house to see who the glasses he’d found at the school behind our house belonged to.  As a single mom, I often relied on the “village” Hillary Clinton spoke of.)

Betty opened the door with a broad smile when she saw me.  “I’ve got to call Jane,” she said after giving me a quick hug.  “She won’t believe who’s here.”  Jane was a friend in common with a hearty laugh and a big heart.  Betty grabbed her cell phone.  “I have a Jitterbug.  I can call for free.  No long distance.”  If you asked my grandkids, they’d say a local call was when the person was in the next room, and long distance meant calling someone outside.  “I could never use a cell phone until I got this one,” she confessed.  The push buttons were giantic, and each button beeped when she pressed it.  She scrolled slowly and methodically to Jane’s number.

“Jane, can you pee?” Betty asked as soon as Jane answered.  Is that the kind of conversations I have to look forward to, when I get a few more years senior than I already am?  “Guess who’s in my living room?” she said, handing me the Jitterbug.

“Hi, Jane,” I said.  “Can you pee?”

“Oh, Penny,” she laughed.  “It’s you.”

Yes, it was definitely me. 

With a little more time to kill before an appointment, I stopped by Joyce’s.  She’d survived three cancers with a vengeance, because that’s who Joyce is – a positive driven kind of woman.  She’d broken a partial bridge in her mouth so that meant I could see daylight through the gap.  It didn’t stop her from inviting her surprise visitor in. 

“Well, damn,” she announced when she saw me, then she slapped the side of her own face.  “I’ve gotta watch my language.  I’ve got grandkids.”  She paused.  “I’ve got great grandkids.”  We laughed.

“I keep busy,” she confessed.  There was no doubt in my mind.  She was always assisting someone.  She’d done it for me, offering a respite for four active children in Glen’s and her tropical paradise backyard filled with Lionel trains, koi, finches, quail, and always some tasty fixin’s.  “Last week I went to a birthday party for a ninety-five-year-old.  I was the young chick.  Guys were hitting on me.”  Joyce is nearly fifteen years older than I am.  That makes her numbers high, but still considerably less than 95.

That night I planned to stop by Jan’s.  She’s one tough cookie who’d just been released from the hospital, stitched up after another surgery, too numerous to count on both hands.  “What can I take over to her?” I asked Couponman before I left.  Since the cook (that would be me) had for the most part left the building, our bakery choices was virtually non-existent.  He handed me a can of pork n’ beans.  We both laughed.  We’d seen an episode of Family Matters years ago when Harriette, the mom, dressed as a hunchback handed out Halloween candy.  Running short, she’d asked her daughter and Urkel to go buy more.  The episode continued at the bank withdrawing funds for the purchase, the bank getting robbed, and patrons held hostage…  By the time the two kids were released, you’d totally forgotten about the Halloween candy.  In the closing scene, the two walked up to the front door.  Mom Harriette, still hunched over, had improvised, dropping a can of pork n’ beans in a kid’s candy bag.

“Our cupboards were bare,” I confessed to Jan.

“I’ll put in it my food storage,” she laughed.

When I returned home, I dropped a quick note to Carla, asking how her backyard was doing.  It was a running joke between us.  A few visits ago, I’d complained about Couponman’s messes.  Then she’d taken me outside to show me her backyard, or lack of.  Her husband had transferred a warehouse of construction material to their patio.  “Let me see your backyard,” I’d said during our next visit.  “Oh, yeah,” I said, pressing my face against her sliding glass door, “I forgot you don’t have a backyard.”  We laughed.  Admittedly, it was probably more me that laughed.

Visiting friends is like going home.  Home is safe.  Home is comfortable.  No need for guest towels.  The candy dishes are half full.  The furniture is familiar.  The backyards are cluttered.  The grass is overgrown.  Dirty dishes soak in the sink.  And best of all, you know where the cookies are hidden.

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