Nourished by friends

There is something weird happening right now. My refrigerator is a little freaked out. It doesn't know what to do because there is actual food in it. Normally I just the fridge to store beverages and condiments. That's about it. I don't grocery shop very often.

But today I have food in there. Last night I spent the evening with some friends who invited me over for a cookout, and they sent me home with leftovers.

The food was great, and I'll have leftovers for days, but the best part is of course the time with good people. My friend, M's, husband is a Marine and has been back from Iraq for about a month, after being over there for a year. One of his friends and fellow officers was there along with his their kids and M and B's two kids, all girls. Two of the girls are close to my daughter's age.

One of the younger girls was so cute. She wanted to go out side were all the older girls were and needed to put her shoes. I happened to be walking through the house at the time and was the first adult she came across. So she asked me for help putting on her shoes, which I gladly did. And I learned something from this girl, who is probably about 5 maybe. I learned that being bald has some benefits. Because I won't ever have to worry about lice.

Let the children teach us.

I have to admit, I'm a pushover for little girls. No matter who they are, they remind me of my daughter when she was younger. And I've missed so much of my daughter's childhood. I look at them for signs of what I know of my daughter and signs for what I've missed.

But most of the evening was spent in adult conversation with the rest of the grownups. OK, a lot of it was a lot of military acronyms and I had no clue what B and his buddy were talking about. But B was cool and explained things for the naive civilian.

And I also got to peak into how other people use technology, which was cool. I still haven't joined the iPod generation, but i may be a step closer now. M and B and their kids had these things called iPod shuffles, which are mini versions of the iPod. Plug the little sucker right in to your computer's USB port, and load it up. Very cool. I don't need an iPod with as much memory as my computer hard drive, but a shuffle could have uses in my life.

B and his buddy also used little portable memory devices to share various computer files. They both had little jump drives, which also plug right in to a USB port. I'm not sure if I have a use for one of those at the moment, but it is definitely handier, and holds more memory than a floppy or Zip disk.

So, it just goes to show, that the best things about dinner with friends isn't the food, it's what you take away from the experience.

Friends
Food
iPod
Technology