Friends Like These (Part 1 of ???)

I have no big plans for today, short of going to the grocery store, attending a band meeting at the middle school for Jacob and watching "Fringe" at 8. 

Adjusting to this time zone means I have to really think about what time my shows are on.  I've got them all set up to DVR just in case, but I do prefer to watch at the actual time.  It used to be because Maryann and I would text each other during the commercials of "SVU" and "Fringe", mostly texts consisting of such deep thoughts as "OMG Did you see that?" or "Freaky!"  or some such blather.  The first time it happened, Mitch looked up horrified from whatever quiet activity he was partaking in, since talking or walking in front of the TV during either one of those shows is cause for divorce at the very least, but more likely a quick and painful death, and said "Who is dumb enough to text you during Fringe?" 

I believe my response was "It's Maryann so we can talk about Fringe, and YOU MUST NOT SPEAK AGAIN UNTIL THIS PROGRAM IS OVER"

And then we would come to work the next day and spend the first hour of our day dissecting what had happened the night before.  Or in the case of SVU, how very nice Eliot had looked, either with or without his shirt on.

Then we would spend the rest of the day remembering random things about the show and would blurt them out to each other.  Sometimes, because our cubicles were next to each other and one or both of us would be facing the opposite direction for extended periods of time, we would talk about these things, only to turn around and find out the other one was not at her desk.  This happened more times than is probably wise to admit. 

It's funny how that it turned out that way between us, because when Maryann first started at the funeral home, I was a little concerned she wasn't going to be any fun.  She was quiet and showed up on time, which irked me to no end because showing up on time was never one of my strong suits.  I was already 6 or 7 years into my career there and had developed a, um shall we say, understanding with the guys.  And by understanding, I mean they knew my philosophy of, "You give me the work in a timely fashion and I will do it and DO NOT COME OVER HERE EVERY 10 MINUTES ASKING ME THE STATUS OF YOUR DEATH CERTIFICATE OR BY GOD THERE WILL TRULY BE A NEED FOR YOUR DEATH CERTIFICATE".  I was also very well versed in the number of ways a letter opener could be used to prove my point.

But eventually, she relaxed and let her personality come out, or I lured her over to the dark side, hard to tell which.  And she became one of my most incredible friends.  I showed her some good authors I enjoyed, and she showed me there's no shame in reading a large print book.  Together we went to jewelry parties, candle parties, purse parties.  She gave me Alisha's old clothes for Sara and I gave her Sara's old clothes for her niece.  We rolled our eyes at the same director quirks (some say stupidity) and we would often find ourselves trying not to laugh out loud when certain office mates launched into stories we had heard no less than 3000 times.   We stayed up way past our bedtimes to go to midnight movie releases of a certain vampire/werewolf series and made our friend Jen go with us to drive.

And we texted each other during our two favorite shows.  Last night, after she had seen the 2 hour season premier of SVU, she texted me to say how good they both were, even though I was only 5 minutes into the beginning.  Stupid time zone difference.  But she was right - both episodes were really good.  And I never saw the end coming.  How about you, Maryann?