Click @ Thursday, Mar. 25, 2004

Tuesday night Amber and I had our first true Friend Experience. It's taken me a couple of days to write about it because I wasn't even sure I wanted to write about it but have finally decided that I never want to forget it. Not that I would ever forget it but you know what I mean,

When I was a little girl my papaw used to point out the stars to me. I couldn't name more then a couple of stars now as he died just before I started junior high but I still notice when there's a star over the moon. He would always point that out to me, too and that has stuck in my mind more than the name of that star or the other one there to the right.

Tuesday night, after a work get together at the local bar, Amber and I drove together to meet a couple of the guys at another bar. When we got in the car I grabbed my phone, saying, "Oh, there's a star above the moon. I need to call my grandmother."

She laughed a little but I made the call, pointed out the star to my granny, we exchanged "I love you's," I almost cried and hung up.

Amber wasn't laughing then. She told me how sweet that was and started talking about her father. I now realize that she never talks about him. I surmised that her parents were divorced but never noticed that I had never heard her utter the word "dad" or "father." He isn't part of her life but she explained that he was trying to make a reappearance.

She cried and apologized profusely, told me she didn't mean to dump all of this on me. She hadn't even talked about it with her boyfriend. See, Amber's a Tough Chick. She doesn't cry, doesn't hug (and we're a very huggy group of co-workers) and I can't think of a single time I've seen her even smooch her live-in boyfriend. I told her there was no need to apologize, that I never wanted her to apologize for expressing her feelings to me. That's what friends are for, after all.

So she spilled on our short drive, touched up her make up in the parking lot and was her old self by the time we walked into the bar.

But you can't forget about that moment.

And on the way home we sang "Tom's Diner," our voices sleepy and scratchy.