Peas and Carrots and Birthday Cake

Why I'll never forget the first time that I met Mrs. Spit, it was....hm...wait a minute, that's funny...now that I think about it as hard as the remaining four brain cells I currently have knocking around my hollow skull allow, I can't remember the first time that I met Mrs. Spit. Honestly, and not just for the sake of illustrating my crappy memory or my rambling point, I cannot remember it. She's just always been there.

To me, that's how I know that I've found a true friend, not to sound all Lifetime Movie, or Hallmark Card on you, Her Faithful Blog Readers. But that's how I knew that I loved my husband, The Daver. He'd been carefully inserted into memories that he had not been a part of, now seated in the aluminum bleachers beside my parents at my high school graduation, clapping when I walked across the stage, rather than hundreds of miles away, shelving horse food or eating vast quantities of cheese (if you'd seen his recent cholesterol score, this would make FAR more sense to you).

In a more friend-in-the-computer-way, Mrs. Spit is like that, too. Certainly, she wasn't at my high school graduation, not because I can't imagine her in the bleachers with Daver and my parents, but because I'm not nearly tech-savvy enough to have had an email at that time in my life, let alone a blog. I've been blogging for a long time, and she's been my friend a long time, so it's safe for me to assume that she has, in fact, been my friend since we both rode dinosaurs to school, although hers were obviously the more refined and polite Canadian dinosaurs.

The lines have blurred a lot these days between friends who have sunned themselves in each others kitchens like cats and friends who have only met through pixilated screens and words--often pithy if they come from me--in a comment box, and while some might scoff at the notion, it's clear to me that they do not understand. Because to me, The Internet is my friend.

Specifically, Mrs. Spit is my friend.

Because I do not know what else you would call someone who, despite losing her only son, (and my Internet nephew) Gabriel, much too soon, sat tirelessly with me, thousands of miles away, and prayed with me while my own daughter was sick.

I do not know what else you would call someone who propped me up during that time, reminded me that while I couldn't be with my daughter during her brain surgery, God was, and made me believe it.

I do not know what else I could call someone who rejoices with me during the good times and cries with me during the hideous, other than a friend.

Because I certainly know no other definition of a friend.

So today, with you, my friends in the computer, I want to raise a glass to celebrate the birth of a good friend of mine and of yours. Someone that someday I WILL meet, whose kitchen I WILL defile with my debaucherous presence (someone who may regret inviting me to her house), and someone who we are ALL honored to know.

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Spit.

Today, my friend, we raise our glasses, brimming full of vodka or gin and we drink deeply to you.