august is my birthday month, but i'm only turning 30, not 87

I talk to my friend Rose almost every weekday.  She is a stay at home mom with four kids, three of whom are under age 4, so we pretty much talk for ten or fifteen minutes here and there, and when we do she has to spell half of her words because she always has an audience with miniature, impressionable, and nosy ears.

We talked a few days ago while Rose was on her way to the podiatrist for her first appointment.  I've been to the podiatrist myself a time or twelve (shout-out to my orthotics!) so I told her what to expect and then to keep me posted on what the doctor said.

Rose called me twice yesterday and I missed her calls because I was with my niece and nephew in New Jersey, so I called her back this morning.  We caught up on the last few days and then hung up so I could get back to work and she could pick the kids up from story time.  About fifteen minutes later my phone rang again, and it was Rose.

I answered and she said, "I completely forgot to tell you how my podiatrist appointment went!"

So she filled me in, and then told me she had to go to the store after the appointment to get some new sneakers.  She went to a little local shoe store, and asked the woman working there for some recommendations on sturdy, sensible shoes, and the woman was no help at all!

And then she went to the produce market and put a ton of onions and apples and peppers and potatoes in her cart, and the guy at the checkout counter asked her if she wanted a bag.

OF COURSE SHE WANTED A BAG! IS SHE JUST SUPPOSED TO CARRY ALL OF THAT WITH HER TWO BARE HANDS?

We lamented that customer service just ain't what it used to be and then talked about the recipes she was going to make with all of the onions and peppers.

I told her I have a produce problem of my own, which is the fact that I have an overabundance of zucchini.  I mentioned I planned to make a recipe where you slice the zucchini into very thin strips, but it's tricky to do with a knife, but the vegetable peeler is too thin.  Rose said, "Oh you need one of those WIDE MOUTHED vegetable peelers" and we both burst out laughing.

Because we met when we were 22, we were both starting our new paralegal jobs at the same time and our desks were next to each other.  We were basically babies and knew nothing about anything, but we walked around that courthouse like we had been there for years.  We would also cover for one another in the courtroom periodically so that the other could go reapply her lip gloss.  We were very serious.

About makeup.

And I could never have predicted the day I met Rose, that together we would talk about our boyfriends who became our fiances who became our husbands, and go to each other's bachelorette parties and weddings and kids' birthday parties, and have our own birthday dinners and fall bonfires and "please tell me you can meet for coffee tomorrows" and talk to each other about the most mundane things in life, and also the really hard things that you can only talk to a best friend about.

My 22 year old, perfectly lip glossed self would not have predicted that that seven years later Rose and I would be having a serious conversation about vegetable peelers.

Anyway Rose laughed and said that when she was a little girl, she remembers sitting under her grandmother's kitchen table eavesdropping while her grandmother and her best friend sat at the table and talked.  One day she heard them discussing the best kind of strawberry for a particular recipe, and she vividly remembers saying to herself that she would never get so old that she would have conversations about produce.

And then in the span of 15 minutes, the two of us talked about the podiatrist, poor customer service, zucchini recipes, and vegetable peelers.

And we're only 29.

Imagine what we will talk about at 80.

Whatever it is, I can assure you we will be doing it wearing sturdy, sensible shoes.