City Girl and I met when we were both working on a local arts festival in our burb. I've been sitting here trying to figure out many years it's been...
The six degrees of separation thing doesn't apply around here...two degrees max and fifty percent of the time we're related. I enrolled in the Master Gardener program when I was six months pregnant with The Not Nice Kid. Met a lovely Scottish lady there, who turned out to be the Matriarch of the Arts Festival...which is how I was recruited. So that would be ten years. I think.
You know how you have definitive moments in life...funny little scraps of time that you can recall in complete detail? I don't remember the first time I met CG but I can tell you the moment I realized she was a keeper.
Another volunteer was driving her van down a sidewalk in the city park...I think we were hauling children's art. I was in the passenger seat and City Girl was in the middle of the back.
(An aside here. City Girl has flawless skin...as in...no imperfections and the bitch ain't got a wrinkle in sight. Whatever history she has is not reflected in her face.)
Driver Friend said something about something about being married, I said something about something and City Girl says, from the back seat, "Well, I something-about-something, and that's why I've been married three times."
DF and I, simultaneously, turned and looked at each other. There was an...extended...silence, and then together we blurted out, "HOW OLD ARE YOU????"
I was giving her 23, tops. TOPS. I mean, for real...early 20's. DF agreed with me. Turns out, we were more than a decade off and to this day...I'd show up at her 30th birthday party tomorrow with no questions.
This weekend is the arts festival. CG is no longer a college student; she has a big-girl job, no time and flits all over the planet. I have one kid with a big-girl job, a teenager and an elementary schooler. Driver Friend is 800 miles away.
That van was maroon. DF had on a denim shirt. Life moves on ;)
Comments