To The Nappin-Ghinis, Wherever You Are
While threading a hand-me-down belt through the belt loops on my favorite pair of jeans last week, I was reminded of friends, Beth and Paul, who I haven’t seen in almost three years. They joined the Peace Corps the same summer that Ruby came home and in preparation of their next adventure, they unloaded most of their material posessions before leaving. The belt—a black strip of ribbon with a silver snowflake-like pattern and rhinestone encrusted buckle—was one of the things Beth left behind with me. I also inherited two sets of fake eyelashes, a clip-on ponytail and a hot pink wig.
Isn’t she a pretty Tooth Fairy?
Though the belt triggered memory lane meanderings, it’s safe to say that I think of both Beth and Paul often. Sam met Paul on the soccer field one Saturday afternoon years ago before we were married. He brought a happy but bloody-faced Paul home to the little beach house we shared and I’ll never forget watching Paul clean up in the claustrophobic space of our bathroom, while explaining how he was wronged on the field. Of course, Paul excitedly claimed he’d done nothing to deserve the header that resulted in a split lip, but now that I know Paul for the scrappy, wheeler-dealer he is, I’m convinced he antagonized his attacker. Paul’s the kind of guy who always needed to borrow something—a table saw, a ladder—and then with a smile, he’d charmingly scheme you into delivery and pick-up of said something. Every single time.
Somehow, it was impossible to be pissed at him for his innocent but calculated manipulations. He’s just that likeable.
Beth, Paul, Sam and I became good friends over the course of the next couple of years. We attended their wedding in Chicago in February of 2003 and Beth and I were in a book club and tennis clinic together. Sam and Paul spent many days brewing beer in our kitchen while Beth and I helped with the straining and endured the stench. Of course, we didn’t complain when it came time to drink the high-alcohol-content home brews.
But the times I remember the most vividly, and miss the very most, were our long running Friday night “dates.” For almost two years, the four of us got together nearly every Friday night to have dinner and drinks. Both of them were big nappers—famous for their post-work snoozes—so we’d generally wait for them to call us to arrange dinner plans. Unless, of course, we wanted to terrorize Paul, in which case, we’d dial him up repeatedly and let the phone drive him mad. Poor Beth was an innocent victim in this game. She totally didn’t deserve the harrassment. But she knew what she was getting when she married Paul, who just brings out the obnoxiousness in us. Ah…we tease, because we love.
On some of those Friday gigs, we’d cook and sometimes they’d cook. Other times we’d head out to a restaurant and let someone else deal with the preparation and clean up. We spent many chilly nights sitting around the chiminea on their patio or around the fire on ours, and we’d talk and laugh hysterically late into the night. These are two funny people with many a ridiculous story between them and we were good enough friends that we’d begun to hear the same shit over and over. It’s a good thing they left, come to think of it. They needed new material.
This past week, I used the salad bowl and tongs that they left with us and Sam used their fancy juicer on Saturday to make fresh orange juice. This weekend, I came across these photos from our 2004 Halloween party, the first time Paul didn’t go as Babar the Elephant for as long as Beth could remember. And every time I see Ruby’s hula-hoop in our back yard, I think about the night that Beth wowed a group of party goers with her mad hula-hooping skillz. The girl rocks a hula-hoop, I’ll tell you what. She just kept going and going and going to the astonished cheers of the small crowd. All the girls were jealous and all the boys were staring at her boobs. And such is her lot in life.
It might have been Beth’s holiday belt that prompted my thoughts, but these two people are all around us, everyday. The brewing of beer has been set aside and Sam says he’s not brewing again until Paul comes back to help him. My tennis bag is currently being used as a home for dying silverfish in the garage. So, Paul, Beth…if you’re checking in to la blog, know that we’re here, putting all of your cool wedding gifts to use, talking behind your backs and just waiting for a call to say you need a ride from the airport.
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