Dining with Debbie in Denver

The drive from Utah to Colorado was long. We got a late start, and had a bit of pressure to get to Colorado by evening, because we were set to have dinner with my childhood best friend, Debbie.

Debbie and I became joined at the hip in 1st grade. We remained that way up through junior high, and people often asked us if we were twins. We were even voted “best friends” in the 8th grade yearbook Who’s Who. We posed for the picture in Park View Junior High’s front office, each holding a phone.

We went to different high schools, but remained good friends, until we made a pact to find each other boyfriends at the opposite schools. The story I would tell you at the time is that I held up my end of the bargain, hooked her up with Jeremy Perkins from my Spanish class, and as soon as they got “serious” she dropped me like a hot potato, and stopped calling or wanting to hang out.

There was surely some truth to that, but I always used to leave out the part that I was teenagedly in love with Jeremy Perkins myself, and that he was clearly not interested, so somehow I thought it was a great idea to fix him up with a close friend. Was I insane? Of course, I was seething with jealousy, and she could have called me every 5 minutes and I still would’ve found a reason to be mad at her.

After that, though, we unofficially stepped back from BFF (best friends forever) status and moved on to KIT’ing. (Keeping in touch). I visited her once when she was a student at UC Santa Barbara, and went to her wedding in Cambria, but I believe it was My Space that started us catching back up. Then, a year and a half ago, when we passed through Colorado on our way to Kansas for Thanksgiving, we met Deb and her hubby, George, had breakfast and explored the Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver.
I definitely felt a shift at that point, from just KITing to becoming friends all over again as adults.

When Debbie stayed a night with us a year ago, on her way to a conference for work in Oakland, we even further cemented our grown up friendship transition with lots of reminiscing, laughter, a peanut throwing/beer swilling dinner at Quinn’s and ice cream at Tucker’s.

So, when passing through Denver became possible, I knew that getting together with Debbie and George was a must. Sweetening the deal even further, Deb offered to cook for us, and a homemade meal of salad (made with lettuce grown in her own garden) and lasagna was just what the doctor ordered for these greased up travelers.
We had an amazing time hanging out at the Aragon house, and Deb and George both treated Nathan like a king. What kid wouldn’t be wowed by big boxes of legos, and three desserts in a row – a popsicle, an ice cream bar, and some really great toffee.

Perhaps the best line of the night was when Nathan was sampling this high quality candy that George and Deb were sharing with us, and George said, “don’t have any of that, Nathan. You’re too young to appreciate it.” So I said, “Nathan, tell him you’re a connoisseur.”

So Nathan promptly marched over to him and said, “George, I’m a dinosaur!”