A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you

It is Saturday early evening and I've found a few minutes to write about Thursday's visit with Cynthia, and maybe catch up till now...

I mentioned previously that I got an email from Cynthia, my friend from years back starting in 1981. We worked together at whatever IST/ITC or whatever it was called all those name changes ago. We had some pretty fun times together.

I remember the first time we went out together after work - we went down to the "market" to Brandy's for a drink. Some strange men sent us drinks which set us giggling and laughing. Over the years we went out to eat many, many times - one of our favourites was a little Chinese place in the seedy part of town. The food was good and cheap! One New Years Eve we ate there, the owners gave us oranges for good luck, which we took to Parliament Hill for the ceremonies there. I remember toasting in the year with orange slices, and then going back to one of our apartments for bubbles. Cynthia almost took an eye out!

It was with Cynthia that my love of bubbles started. We shared many bottles over the years. She also got me interested in cooking. Some of the most fun times in my life were spent cooking a meal with her. We'd do elaborate, multi course meals that would take us all day and into the night to make.

I remember one Easter making roast rabbit stuffed with wild rice. We had lemon pudding cake (which my cats had nibbled the top off of). And since it was special occasion we dressed in old satin bridesmaid dresses. We were just a bit crazy.

I remember one time making some elaborate meal which took us ages to make - I can't remember all the courses, but the first one was some sort of fish broth soup. By the time the soup was served it was after 10pm and let's just say that Carm was a tad cranky. I should also mention that he is no great fan of fish... so what did I put in front of him? A big bowl of broth with a giant fish head in it. He wasn't too happy with me that night. But Cynthia and I laughed and laughed. Our laughter was possibly influenced by the quantity of "cooking" wine...

Sometime in the mid 90s she met Martin, an Australian, who was working with us at the time. I guess it was inevitable that he would move back to OZ and take Cynthia with him.

One of the last hurrah's of cooking together had us roasting a whole lamb over an open fire. The boys manned the spit and the fire, while we made Moroccan dish after Moroccan dish in the kitchen. I can't remember how many people we had out for that meal but it had to have been close to 40. What fun that was and oh... the lamb was so good. I think we even insisted that people eat the Moroccan way - with their fingers!

Which brings me to another story from the early 80s. For a few years we would rent a car and go camping for a week. Cynthia had never roughed it before but as always she was game to try. We had a blast each time. One year we decided we'd forgo eating utensils and just use our fingers. Even the chili! Pancakes and eggs were easy, steak was a breeze.

I'm jumping around a bit as memories pop into my head, but it all adds up to the same thing. Friendship.

So back to the present (or it was the present a few days ago)... I got an email from Cynthia that she had seen something on facebook that we might be in Calgary and if we were close maybe we could get together as she was visiting her mother in Canmore. Well, we weren't in Calgary, we were even closer - in Banff - perhaps as close as 20 minutes away!

The universe has a strange way of working sometime - if we had gotten the site at Waterton like we had wanted we would have been hours away, and not just 20 minutes. There were only a few sites in Banff to choose from, but luckily we got one. So we got together for supper together, just like the universe had arranged :-) And took up just as we had left off.

Life is good.

A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.
Elbert Hubbard