My husband said something to me a few months ago when I was avoiding people I knew from high school at the mall… this is something I find myself doing quite often and it’s disgusting of me.  I don’t really love small talk, but he pointed out that others don’t really love it either, but it isn’t bad to just say hi every once in a while to people who you have spent time with throughout your life.  This sunday, I’m looking back on the last week and i’m super pleased with myself.

mike & ty
brent & kirsten’s engagement pic

Tuesday night, we had an invitation to drive up to Elk River to a byob/meat bbq at a friend’s house.  We had received an invitation to their last one as well, but it’s a far drive and we work long hours during the week, so we had turned them down.  We are going to their wedding in the end of this month and we wanted to catch up with them and see their house before the wedding.  We said yes to the bbq and then told ourselves that we wouldn’t turn back.  We made the 40 mile drive out there after work with our Coors Light and Chicken breasts.  It worked out so well.

We caught up with all the guys I was friends with in college and met some new people that we’ll see again at the wedding.  About 10 people turned out, so we were able to chat with everyone that came and it worked out great.  Mike and Tyler were super great friends in college and I haven’t really heard from them or seen them in almost 3 years.

By coincidence, Justin overheard Mike talking about eventually wanting a job in project management and Justin is hiring exactly that right now for his department, so he gave Mike a business card and told him that if he could come and interview the next day, that he would give him a shot.  By 10 PM, Mike had sent over a great copy of his resume and the interview was scheduled the next day.  Crazy how things work out.  Now, he’ll be offered a job this week and will probably be a great fit and if we had not gone to the bbq, Justin would have filled the position with someone that wasn’t nearly as good of a fit and we would have seen them at the wedding and then probably again in a few years…

brenden g

After Tuesday night, I felt pretty good about catching up with old friends and decided that I’d keep trying.  The very next day, I received a message from an old elementaty/junior high friend of mine.  He was my best friend growing up and we talked for hours every day.  Once high school came, he went away to boarding school and we kept in contact a little bit through high school.  Once college came around, he moved out to Tacoma, Washington and we got ice cream the first summer back and then completely grew apart after that.

With the magnificent creation of Facebook, we have reconnected via the internet over the few 3-4 years.  He has been leading hiking trips and working with Outward Bound all over the world and it was fun to look at his pictures and follow him around the world.  Anyways, I received a message from him saying that he was coming back to town (his mom & sister live in Edina) for about a week and he would love to catch up.  It just so happened that I had Friday off and didn’t really have any plans, so I told him lunch on Friday would work.

It was a super rainy day and we decided to go to McGovern’s.  We had a few beers and a good lunch and talked about the past and the future and it was great to catch up.  It will probably be a while until we can do that again, but it was refreshing to catch up with someone who is doing all kinds of cool and interesting things with his life and hearing all about it.  Hopefully, we will make it to Colorado to visit this fall and we can both have lunch with him.

The final example I have of meeting up with an old friend is the fact that I gave in last week and bought Britney Spears tickets.  It was pretty amazing.  She can’t really sing or dance anymore, but it was the crazy fans that were all around.  I was planning on taking Anna, but she got really sick that morning, so Justin ended up going with me and because she couldn’t sell out, we were upgraded and ended up with amazing seats.  Nicki Manaj was pretty awesome too.

We ran into some old girlfriends of mine before the show.  It fits right into my “staying in touch/putting effort in” because B Spears is like an old friend and you have to show her some grace as she gets older and becomes more of a trainwreck and in my eyes, no matter how cheesy, a real fan will appreciate her no matter how horrible.

Hopefully we are able to get to New York or LA soon so that Justin is able to catch up with old friends.  His are a little more spread out than mine, but it’s worth the effort. On a different note, we spent the day with the Cragins/Taylors at the cabin in Minong and it was a beautiful day.  Now, we’re dealing with the heat advisory all week.  Deep sigh.