Feb. 16, 2008 - Project 52, Week 6: Feb. 6-12

This week was all about my trip to Indianapolis for my college friend Suzie's 40th birthday party. To say "college friend" seems so limited; I use that only to indicate from which stage of my life she comes. But her friendship is certainly not relegated to the archives of college. We have spanned nearly 20 years and adventures from all-nighters in college to birthing babies.




The 7-8 hour trip itself was pure bliss. My very best college friend (again, a designation, not a limitation!) Tracy and I drove up together. She lives just 2 hours away from me but we rarely see each other because of our busy family lives. We talked non-stop the entire trip. And I do mean non-stop. We didn't even notice for a full hour that we'd been stopped in traffic on I-75.



Saturday we met the Indiana contingent and surprised Suzie during lunch at The Legend, the restaurant owned and operated by Tracy's sister and her husband.



After lunch, we kidnapped Suzie and filled our shopping carts at Trader Joe's. I feel optimistic that we'll get one in the Knoxville area soon! Tracy's cart included 8 boxes of her favorite raisin bran, which she can only find at Trader Joe's.



The next surprise for Suzie was that Angie had flown in from Atlanta. The four of us  had a couple of hours all by ourselves. Much to our delight/horror, Suzie pulled out the "minutes" from our "club" back in college. Wow. Yeah, so the story is,  our college didn't have sororities and we decided to make up our own. We met every Monday and discussed everything that was going on. I was the social director, so it was  my job to find out what bands were playing where. That's pretty much what we appeared to plan our lives around. Apparently there wasn't much studying going on, although there was a note that indicated I had a test coming up. I think the "one-minute of silence" for Andy Gibb superseded that, though. Suzie and Angie wanted to burn the notes, but Tracy and I felt strongly that these are an important historical document.



Our next stop was Steve and Giedra's house for the big birthday bash. Suzie's next surprise was that her whole family was there. And a lot of other people. The food was fabulous, and we especially enjoyedthe talent show in Suzie's honor.



There were skits, poems, scrapbooks, readings, and a couple of songs, including a performance by Steve, above.


Here we are, the four Rowenas. Everyone had to wear a nametag explaining how we knew Suzie. Ours read: "Original Friend. We knew her before you did." We are so silly.



Tracy and I left fairly early the next morning to head back to Tennessee. Of course, we had to stop outside Cincinnati at the Gap Clearance Center first. It's a tradition.



Seven more blissful hours of non-stop talking, and we arrived back at my house. It was fabulous to be home to my people again but hard to let Tracy go.


I think it took me about 4 days to recover from that trip. I wasn't physically tired, but it's funny how long it takes to get back into the swing of things. Boy, did I miss those sweet faces waiting back home for me. Life is good.