Lunch with Angie

This is Angie.
I have an identical picture taken in the exact same dorm.

Today I had lunch with Angie.  Angie and I went to High School together, but didn't really know each other very well then.  We had a few classes together but ran with relatively different crowds.  That last sentence made our High School sound big - it wasn't; we graduated with maybe 130 people.  Anyway, if you told me Angie's name I could tell you what city she lived in and that she liked the color pink and that her boyfriend (now husband) was a really nice guy - but that's about it.  When we graduated I assumed I would never see her again outside an occasional obligatory reunion, just like 125 other people.

In college, Angie and I got together once for a book reading (Anne Lamotte at the Borders in Ann Arbor).  It was totally random.  She had transferred to U of M from an out-of-state college and I had heard rumor of this but it wasn't really on my radar.  I don't quite remember why we met up but we had coffee and went to the reading.  I don't remember much about the actual date but I do remember it was kind of awkward.  But seriously, I was a sophomore in college - everything I did was awkward. (Hah, I'm a 25-year-old grad student and will continue to be awkward my entire life.)  We parted ways at the end of the afternoon and went 4 more years without really seeing each other.

A few years ago we somehow started reading each other's neglected blogs.  I think I was creeping on her and left a comment, to which she politely reciprocated, and so on and so forth until we both kind of realized that we had a lot in common.  Angie was settling into the area and we have similar mindsets when it comes to politics, family-rearing, food, and the earth.  So we got together for coffee again.  Only this time I remember it being fantastic!  It was amazing to talk to someone who knew exactly where I grew up and understood so much about it.  We laughed at the fact that the distance from the west side of the state (where we have a lot of friends and family) to where we live is longer than it is from here to there.  Or so it would seem.  Well, time flew by at our coffee date.  We agreed we should get together again and bring our man-friends to meet and in general just see more of each other.  Then we promptly let a year or so go by before meeting up again.

Today we met at a favorite restaurant of both of ours which we discovered was something else we had in common.  Our two hour lunch flew by as we talked about families, food, farming, and life in general.  We both drank more water than our bodies could hold and continued to talk in separate bathroom stalls before hugging in the parking lot and parting ways.  While I don't plan on waiting a year for another date, I feel that any amount of Angie in my life is just great.  I rarely find someone with whom I can sustain a flowing conversation without being bored or making them uncomfortable (another reason I went into Community Social Work and not Counseling) - but with Angie it's on fire.