Ira

Avery and I are going to Virginia Beach this weekend. Canetto leaves tonight for Charlotte, and we had no plans for the weekend. Until Monday -- when Ira e-mailed and said that he was having a surprise party for his wife on Saturday and could we come? So, I'm going -- and letting my mom babysit my kid while I go to the party.

I have known Ira since the second grade (back in the Pembroke Meadows Elementary School days), although we didn't really become friends until high school. And we stayed pretty close through college (me at JMU...him at Tech). I remember one weekend when he and some of his fraternity brothers came to JMU to visit -- the RA for my dorm knocked on my door and said, "there are some guys urinating off the roof of the study lounge...do you know them?" and I almost knocked her over running down the hall screaming, "Ira's here!"

Another weekend, he and his frat brothers came with me to a party at my then-boyfriend's house off-campus. A bunch of people in a neighboring house who were part of the Catholic Campus Ministry were apparently upset by the amount of beer we were drinking and said to us, "we don't need beer to have fun...we're Christians" to which Ira replied, "We don't need God to have fun...we're alcoholics."

I shared a mailbox at JMU with another student (that I didn't know), so Ira made a point of sending letters that had things like "YOUR CONFIDENTIAL PREGNANCY TEST RESULTS ENCLOSED" and other hilarious messages scrawled on the envelopes. I have saved all of them.

We don't see each other often -- but are usually there for the big stuff -- weddings, anniversary parties, graduation parties and of course -- the famous (infamous?) Buffet Day party at Tech.

Good Times.