friends like this

Do you have friends like this?

Friends who sit in your living room and hear the worst days of your lives.

Not leave.

Not blink.

Not get up and exit.

But stay.

Remain.

Listen.

Stay.

Remain.

Listen.

Repeat.

Over and over again.

As often as necessary.

More often than necessary.

Do you have friends like that?

Oh my goodness.

I count it one of the greatest blessings of my life to have friends like that.

And we are so unbelievably fortunate that I could list a small handful of friends like that.

Because we have them.

That’s real.

And amazing.

And so incredible.

But I am just talking about one set of those friends right now.

Just one.

(And there are more.)

But this one set.

Our friends Jody and Mandy.

Because they have been that kind of friend,

they are also this kind of friend.

The kind that can move into a new house (them – not us)

and when we decide to take a little dinner over to them as an excuse to check out their new place and invite ourselves over

(because friends can do that you know)

I try a new recipe on them.

A completely new, never-before-been-tried-in-our-house, recipe.

The kind you can only try with friends like this.

(Because otherwise you’d test it at home to see if it works before you put yourself on the line like that.  You know.)

And we brought this chicken – this orange chicken recipe.

With rice.

Actually,

it smelled a little off

when we left the house

but I blamed it on the ginger root.

Let me tell you –

it wasn’t the ginger root’s fault.

Not by a long shot.

My apologies ginger root.

I think it was my fault.

The kids didn’t eat any.

They ate their rice and they ate their green beans and they avoided the “orange” (but really sort of muddy brown) chicken as if it were poison.

They said it smelled funny.

Really,

Bergen whispered to me that it smelled like dog food.

And it did.

Smell funny.

And taste funny.

That is true.

All true.

Oh – we ate it.

It was not the worst stuff we have ever put into our mouths.

But it wasn’t good.

It was just dinner.

And we laughed.

And talked about the slightly scorched taste of the chicken that made you believe you were somehow eating beef even though you knew it was actually chicken I had cut up all morning for the crock pot.

That slightly, honestly so much less than slightly – taste of burned chicken.

Scorched chicken.

The lingering smell.

I fed the leftovers to Bosco – our dog.

She was not picky either.

It smelled like dinner to her.

Actually.

It probably did.

Because Bergen was right.

It smelled a little like dog food.

Anyway – the point is not the dog-food-smelling chicken I sadly served to our friends in their new home.

The point is –

friends like that.

If you don’t have any – you need some.

They’re pretty great.