where's the outlet

It's time for another blog plug.

Many friendships are ones you discover for yourself.  You seek out people or perhaps they fall into your lap by sheer luck but you work at them and they take time.  However, there are also friends who you have the great fortune of being required to love through no fault of your own. They are cousins, or conveniently-timed born children of your parents' friends or some other fantastic twist of fate.

For me - I have discovered that my parents have excellent taste in godparents.  There is much back and forth on what the role of a godparent is to a child.  Is it simply to provide spiritual guidance? to be the guardian should both parents parish in some sort of flaming disaster? to be an extension of family when perhaps it is needed most?

My godparents (and I have the extreme good fortune to have three, two godmothers and a godfather) have all given me something quite different.  This blog is focused on Godmother 1.  Annie.

Annie was my Mom's college roommate.  Which was good news for her (my Mom) and for me - it turns out.

Annie faded in and out of my childhood in the form of real hand-written letters on the topics any 10 or 12 year old would pick (so Titanic, mostly).  She came to visit once, with Kevin - her beau.  They brought me a box of beads with ribbon for stringing them.  And a book about restoring a house.  They have always been quite good at presents that are both random and perfect.  Its a skill I have spent most of my adult life striving for.

Then while I was in college she came to visit New York.  It was the first time that I had seen her in probably about 8 years.  I was so scared that I wouldn't recognize her, but I did.  Of course.  She's Annie.

And then I moved to Chicago because Annie said I should, and at that crossroads of my life - I figured that she was as good as anyone to make my life decisions. 

And now I am in Chicago as permanently as I have ever been anywhere.  Annie and Kevin have been an integral part of that life.  From giving me food and shelter, to wisdom and opportunity.  They are without a doubt, the coolest people in the universe and all of my other friends who have had the chance to meet them have all agreed whole heartily.

Kevin, who I have only met because of Annie, has become just as important as she is.  They work as team.  To bring wonder and awesomeness into the world.

And now Kevin is embarking on an adventure that was certainly not planned, or asked for, but he is taking it on it with more grace and good humor than I could ever muster.  You should read about it here.