Weekend with Brooke!

On the first day of seventh grade, I felt scared and alone. I was going to a new school where I didn’t really know anyone, and back then I was painfully shy. That afternoon, I wandered into my home economics class and looked around for a seat. I sat next to a skinny blonde girl with glasses and a green silk shirt. Her name was Brooke. We were 12. That was the beginning.

More than a decade later, we are grown women and have managed to keep in touch. It’s somewhat of a miracle, considering the major turns our lives have taken since that first day of middle school. I went away to college, Brooke moved to California and then Alabama, where she has been for three years. But this past weekend she came for a visit, the first time that I had seen her in person since about 2002.

I picked up Brooke at the airport at 6 p.m. on Saturday, feeling a little nervous since so much time had passed since the last time we had seen each other. I should have known how easily we would fall back into our normal patterns. I think it’s always like that with the people you grew up with – things just naturally fall back into place, no matter how many years go by.

We drove back to my apartment as Brooke ooh’ed and ahh’ed over the sight of the city skyline on a beautiful Northwest evening. She met my kitty Jasmine and we relaxed for a minute looking at old pictures and reminiscing about high school. Then we headed up the street for a quick dinner at Gorditos. Full of nachos, we wandered back to my house, but first made a pit stop at Kerry Park so Brooke could take pictures of the city, which looked absolutely gorgeous in the setting sun. Then back to my apartment to get ready for a night on the town!

After meeting up with a couple of my girlfriends, we decided to check out a new bar called Amber in Belltown. It’s a pretty upscale, classy bar cleverly lit by amber lights hung from the ceiling. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, since it was very crowded, with poor service, and got a very bad review on CitySearch. We had a few drinks on the patio while we entertained ourselves by making fun of the truly outrageous and hideous things people are willing to wear out in public. I think I saw a girl wearing a gold silk nitie from a ‘70s porn flick. Since the bar seemed to be filling to the brim with snobby girls and frat guys, we moved next door to Tia Lou’s, which has a fantastic outdoor patio upstairs, complete with its own private bar. We proceeded to down a few Red Headed Sluts in between laughing, taking pictures, dancing and talking.

For some reason I can’t remember anymore, we decided to walk back to Queen Anne, but only got about half way there before we gave up and hailed a cab. Brooke and I then planted ourselves on my kitchen floor, where we could open the oven door every five minutes to see if our gourmet DiGiorno pizza was ready. I remember it being pretty doughy when we ate it… I wonder if that’s why I felt sick the next morning…

Maybe not, because when we finally dragged ourselves out of bed Sunday morning, we were hungry and hung over enough to reheat the pizza. Mmm… half-cooked pizza and Dr. Pepper for breakfast, yum! Since Brooke said she had never really been to Seattle, despite growing up only an hour south in Olympia, I decided to take her to a common tourist location, the Pike Place Market. We wandered around for a couple hours and Brooke was able to find a couple cool presents for her boyfriend. Tired out from being hung over and walking around in the sun, we grabbed a couple McDonald’s cheeseburgers to settle our stomachs and headed to the viewpoint in West Seattle. Sitting in the grass, we took pictures of the city and watched a couple play fetch in the water with their very cute black lab, which was kind enough to come over and say hello, as well as shake dirty salt water all over me. Nice.

Thoroughly sun stroked and exhausted, we went back to my apartment for a nap. That’s what lazy Sunday’s are for, right? However, we passed up precious beauty sleep in favor of watching an old home video of Brooke’s fourteenth birthday party, which was at the time dubbed the “Clueless Party.” I don’t remember laughing so hard in a long time. The video brought up many memories of our days at NTHS, and we spent the rest of the afternoon giggling and reminiscing about the good old days, before we became grown ups and had to face the real world.

For dinner, Brooke decided Thai food sounded good, so we headed to the Thai Kitchen in upper Queen Anne, one of my favorites. By the time we were done the sun was starting to set, so I figured I simply must expose Brooke to beautiful Golden Gardens park to watch the sunset. We sat on a log and took photos of the water and sky, which literally looked like a masterpiece painted by God. A young couple that had just gotten married wandered on the beach, it was completely adorable.

Since by this time Brooke and I really felt like we were on a date, we decided we might as well finish it off with a movie in Ballard. The Devil Wears Prada was playing, and since we had both been dying to see it, we bought tickets, some ice cream, and headed in. Although the movie was not nearly as good as the book, I would still recommend seeing it.

We crashed hard when we got home, and on Monday morning it was time to take Brooke down to Olympia so she could spend the rest of her vacation with her family. I said hello to her mom and was on my way.

It was so fabulous to spend the weekend with Brookie Cookie, it has been far too long. Like I’ve said in a previous blog, it’s so comforting that longstanding friendships can stand the test of time, no matter what the circumstances. Speaking of which, I absolutely cannot wait to go to London and Paris in October with Brooke and Jamie – talk about a high school reunion!

When I was a little girl, my mom used to sing this song to me: “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver but the other’s gold.” How cheesy, but so true.