Is There Such Thing as a Tissue Sommelier?

Friendship is unnecessary, like art...
It has no survival value; rather, is one of those things that give value to survival.
~C.S. Lewis

We don't have family in town, but we are so fortunate to be surrounded by amazing friends.  Denver is the only city I've lived in during my adult life, so I don't have much to compare it to in the realm of making friends as adults,  but people are really friendly here.  And cool.  You know where I met many of my friends?  Through my involvement at my kids' school.  I'm not talking about the 'Crap, there's a school function and now I'm going to have to chit-chat with a bunch of fake people' kind of friends, but real, down-to-earth friends.  God, I love this school.  I'm coming to the realization that the fact that my kids' school is what I'm truly going to miss most during our year away either makes me a lunatic, or incredibly blessed.

Jury's still out on that one.

Some friends have suggested that we throw a going-away party before we leave for Australia.  While that sounds like a great opportunity to see everyone, especially those friends that we consider dear but only see once or twice a year, I balked, saying that I would likely just be a teary-eyed disaster.  Hell, I cried at my son's end-of-season soccer party when his coach had the audacity to talk about the spring season and then looked at Alex and told him that he's looking forward to having him back on the team the following spring when we return.


You see, Alex's soccer team is made up of kids from his 1st grade class--one of the dads is the coach, and the end-of-season party was held at the cozy restaurant Satchel's on 6th, which is owned by another dad.  He opened up his restaurant just for the occasion and served a delicious grilled salad and braised short ribs, with wine aplenty.  Warm atmosphere, good people...I wish I could blame my tears on the wine, but I didn't even have a sip.  


Really, Annie?  The fact that your son will miss out on a year of soccer team participation elicits tears?  Yikes.  I guess I just really love life here, so even though I'll be back in a year--hopefully with my kids at the same school, although it's not a given--I'm just really going to miss everyone.  Don't get me wrong; I'm incredibly psyched for this next year and am having way too much fun in the evenings planning a rough 3-week camping itinerary...but I'm still going to miss everyone.


As I was in the midst of writing this post, I received an email from two friends (that I met at the kids' school, damn them for being so awesome) saying that they weren't going to accept not having a going away party and tossed out some ideas.  Want to know the height of lameness?  At the dinner table tonight, I told Sam that I have the nicest friends ever, and couldn't even get the words out about the party without crying.  Then I had to explain to the boys that I wasn't sad, I was just really happy.


Did you hear that, Sara and Laura?  Better pick a place that is known for their selection of fine tissues.  And hey, maybe start being a little bitchy so this whole process could get a little easier on me.


Love you guys, and I look forward to you rightfully ridiculing me when I sport an affected Aussie accent just over a year from now.