Tend to Your Garden

The theme of this past weekend was “friends” from my oldest friend to my newest friends. It made me realize how important friends are, and once again I promised myself that I will work harder on my friendships. I have a tendency to neglect my friends. Yes, we are all busy and don’t necessarily live close by, and I hate the telephone, but there really are no excuses for allowing friends to fade away. I remember a colleague, a man of great wisdom, who would often comment, “you have to tend to your garden” when he spoke of family and friends. So this weekend I tended to my garden of friends. I even got to water the family tree a little bit!

On Friday evening I rode with the cycle club. Whoever shows up for the “fling” picks a ride according to their level, given about 2 hours of daylight. Just to be on the safe side, I chose the shortest ride, 15 miles, and rode with 3 other women. We finished well ahead of the other riders, so next time I will probably go on the longer ride. Afterwards, everyone is invited to hit the local pub for food and drinks and assorted chit chat, so I joined the dinner group. It was quite friendly and I’d like to think that I made some new friends.

On Saturday evening, we went to a 50th birthday party for my oldest friend. Judy and I grew up next door to each other and we moved in when we were 2 years old. Over the years, we have drifted apart, but we always drifted back together. Since we’ve gotten married and raised families, we have managed to speak to each other and see each other fairly regularly. Several of my childhood friends were there, some of whom I haven’t seen in years, so we took lots of photos. And of course Judy got out the pictures, including the class photos from elementary school. That was good for more than a few laughs. When we left, I turned to my husband and said, “my friends got fat.” None of them are obese, but they all need to lose at least 15-20 pounds. That was the only disappointment of the evening. I hate to see them struggling with their weight, because you know it isn’t going to get any easier as we get older. None of them have particulary active lifestyles either.

Yesterday, DH and I hosted a World Cup Party and BBQ. For every friend that did make it, at least 1 friend was unable to get there. So we had a small but enthusiastic crowd. Of course I had way too much food, and then one friend who is Indian and has a small catering business brought a small tray of roasted chicken with delicious Indian spices and then made shishkebabs! We finished off with an ice cream cake because Saturday was DH’s 51st birthday. About half of the group actually watched the game!

And on a final note, family. My uncle was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. They discovered something in his lung quite by accident, when they did a CT scan looking at something else. He will require surgery but may not need either radiation or chemotherapy. DH lost his uncle to lung cancer a couple of years ago. He fought the disease for 3 years, and during that time, I would constantly remind (even nag) DH to call him. DH was grateful that I did that, so he is now returning the favor. He has been reminding me that I need to call my uncle, and I finally did. He sounds very upbeat and wants to get on with the surgery so he can get on with his life! The man is 78 years old and behaves as if he is half that age. He works full-time, travels, skiis, hikes, and just lives life to the fullest. Go Uncle Go.