Friday, August 20, 2010

Flashback Friday: Thoughful Friend Edition


Whitley is the kind of friend that sends you a box of chocolates when you call to tell her good luck on her last and final finals but you casually mention you stubbed your toe last Tuesday.

Whitley is the kind of friend who single handedly assembles your new furniture with only vague diagrams and the Swedish dictionary to help.

Whitley is the kind of friend to loan you her favorite dress even though she was thinking about wearing it to church but no you go ahead, you have very important errands to run.


Or loan you matching sweatshirts. Too bad I can't blame her for the funky shorts. They were all the rage in Kiawah though. Trust me.

It’s why it should come as no surprise the girl gave me one of the greatest birthday presents ever, a calendar.

During my days working on the Hill, I sustained myself with boxed mashed potatoes and cheerios. Whitley had a similar job situation and lived on rice and beans and copious amounts of generic orange juice. We were living on peanuts and exotic vacations were just a twinkle in our eye. So, we started this silly game of planning a virtual trip once a month to distract ourselves when a constituent had called to talk about the government invading his brain using alien technology. She would find airfare, accomodations and day trips to Bath, the Amazon rainforest or the place where they filmed that one restaurant scene in this movie about a bird in a cage, you know which one I am talking about?

Whitley moved on like everyone in the DC metropolitan area except the Kings are apt to do. She went to law school and I got married. Perhaps we matured past trips to Jane Austen’s birthplace. Maybe it just got too depressing that we were now responsible adults and would never get to spend three weeks in New Zealand hiking and tracking Orlando Bloom’s every scene. Our “trips” became fewer and far between until Whitley sent me the best twenty-fifth birthday present I could have asked for. She made me a 2008 calendar with trips planned out for the whole year. We were going to go to Japan, Paris for Valentine’s Day, The Bahamas to swim with the dolphins and Daniel Craig. It was such a very very thoughtful gift. Lucky lucky me she is coming to town today.


A birthday cake from Whitley on another festive birthday occassion. One where it looks I either couldn't afford to do my laundry or forgot to wear a shirt...

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