On getting old(er) together

Last night we had a belated birthday celebration for one of the women with whom I shared a truly great life adventure. When I went back to film school (too many years ago to mention), I went back as a "mature student" (meaning I wasn't particularly "mature", just "old(er)" than the average 20-something student in our class.) Much to my delight, I discovered that a small posse of other "mature" women had ALSO been accepted to the film program. (though I was the "most mature" of the lot in terms of birth date.)

And so we began a very intense 3 year period of learning, working, drinking gallons of coffee, and shooting in the rain/cold/day/night, and sobbing rising to the challenge when it was hard, and cramming studying together, and sometimes being shit disturbers in class when we knew that SOMEONE had to carry the feminist torch and everyone else sat silent. I'm telling you, despite our winning smiles and charm, you really wouldn't have wanted to mess with any of us when the chips were down. But if you were a member of our amazing class, you knew that we had your back.

Four of us made a really great connection and have managed to maintain that connection since graduating 11 years ago (albeit sometimes sporadically). We are; Meebs, Doodie (or KD), AJ and moi. So last night, with 3 of us in tow, we celebrated our Meebs. (Her real name is Denise. I can't QUITE recall why Meebs seemed so appropriate at the time. It must have been the lack of sleep and air in the studio.) She'd be the one in the foreground of the above image.

One of us (AJ) was missing because she had to work, but we still managed to solve the problems of the world. So, if you were wondering how that happened last night while some of you lay sleeping.... well - yup - it was us. We managed to cram in about 6 months worth of heady and important stuff: love, work, family, food, and fun.

Oh! And Meebs shared her brush with death when she broke her arm a month ago.

Which prompted Doodie to recall a similar life and death experience.

There was lovely food, (like Doodie's most fabulous salad) and veggie spaghetti (I'll share the secret recipe tomorrow)....

And what kind of birthday would it be without cake? (Or mocha chocolate chip cupcakes with a chocolate sour cream icing, to be exact - recipe coming soon to a Sugarlove blog near you).

And most of all, there were some really great belly laughs. The kind of laughs that come from sharing history.

And THAT, in a gorgeous nutshell, would be the beauty of growing old(er) together.

Happy birthday Meebs....