Well, it only took me two and a half years here in El Paso to make a friend, that either says a lot about my work schedule, or my personality...
I started doing yoga for the first time at a studio fairly close to my house in April-ish, and quickly discovered it kept me from being as neurotic as usual, and kept going! It was the most "normal", and I use that word VERY loosely, social setting I had been in since moving from Weatherberry, and I had forgotten how much I needed that kind of outlet.
One day, after I'd been going a month or so, we did a "partner stretch", and since the "partners" needed to be roughly the same height (yeah, good luck with that in El Paso), I got paired with a girl on the complete other side of the room, named Bonnie. Now, I had seen Bonnie several times, and we had said "hi & bye" in class, but never had the chance to talk.
Turns out, Bonnie was a bit socially starved too! A high power accountant, and recent transport from MANHATTAN...yes, New York City, to El Paso, TX...talk about a culture shock! She also went from Mrs. Career woman, to Mrs. Stay At Home Mommy of 8 month old Jacob. Whoa! I just thought I wanted to slit my wrists with a butter knife....
So once we were introduced, in the form of trying to "gumbify" each other in partner stretch, our first conversation went sorta like this.
Bonnie: "Hi, my name's Bonnie"
Kristen: "Hi, my name's Kristen"
Both Together: "Wanna be my friend?" (not really, but basically)
So here we are, five months later, and causing lots of trouble. Our most recent adventure was "de-algaeing" Bonnie's pool (which I COMPLETELY got suckered into). See, Mrs. Bonnie has contacts, therefore, she wasnt about to don on the goggles and go down with the wire brush. I was good with that part, minus the fact that I kept floating up in the middle of my scrubbing. Bonnie, so lovingly placed her hoof in the middle of my back on the pool floor to "help" me stay down there (true confessions, but only because she will most likely read this, I DID ask her to push with her HAND to help me, but evidently, the foot worked better). Part two of the algae cleaning involved rubbing a chlorine tablet along the bottom of the pool floor to kill any remaining algae I didnt get with the brush. "The pool guy told me to be sure and NOT handle the chlorine, he said socks work good". So at some point, while holding my breath at the bottom of my friend's pool, wearing her gym socks on my hands, and rubbing poisonous chemicals on the plaster three inches from my face, I realized that we MUST be true friends. (of course, at this point, when it all became incredibly funny to me, I came up spouting and laughing uncontrollably, to point this out to my sweet friend Bonnie).
Good friends are hard to find, and I'm glad I found this one.
(even if she did try to drown me)
