January 7th, 2025
By
Bonnie Tarantino
Some friends just have a place in your life. For me, Jen is my neighborhood gang. She’s from Jersey, and I am from NY. A neighbor set us up. She just said , “You two should be friends.” Then she went in her house and left us out in her driveway.
I said, “I’ve got no one here.”
She said, “Me too, nada.”
I said, “Like, if I have an emergency, I have no one to call. I am screwed.”
“Ditto,” she said.
“These Baltimore girls are tight; I am not getting anywhere,” I said
“She is not even going to invite us into her house, is she?” Jen said looking at the closed door.“
“Nope, but you can come over to mine anytime,” I said.
“I’m in.” She said.
Since that day, she has been my person. We raised our kids together, shared holidays, and fell in love with each other’s extended families. We have a slogan when the shit hits the fan, “This is what we trained for.” We believe we can fix anything if we tackle it and a bottle of wine together. Like, when Scott told me not to move the dining room table onto the porch because it would not fit through the door frame, I did anyway, but it got stuck in the doorframe. (We took off the legs and screwed them back on and never told him it got stuck.) The table was never quite level again. Like when her husband told her not to take the tractor out, and she did, and it rolled into the woods, and we hauled it out with her suburban while playing Disney music for the 2-year-olds buckled in the back. Like the time we made a Disney princess cake, a disgusting cat litter cake with cat poo out of tootsie rolls, and a batch of brownies because we just wanted to eat brownies for breakfast and not diet anymore.… like the time.. like the time…like the time.
We were so good at being moms of three kids together and also so bad. We made our kids play outside and didn’t camp them up. By the end of the summer, we hated them and made plans to run away. We made homemade dinners most nights and swapped leftovers and recipes. When we didn’t want to run to the store, we would just walk into each other’s houses and grab what we needed to borrow. We have all the same brands, we know each other codes to the garage. We have slogans like “the dirtier the bath water, the greater the day.” And “choose your battles.” Mostly, we say, “It will be alright.” then get quiet. The worse it is, the harder we end up laughing about it. We have taken walks late at night and under a quiet moon, saved our marriages and, in honest early morning carpools, have sent each other back to bed to save ourselves.
On top of all this, we always have epic snow days, and today did not disappoint. When she called laughing for me and Maya to get dressed and meet her at the end of the lane, I wasted no time and jumped in my snow clothes like a little kid. Hours later, after a toed toboggan ride by her ancient Suburban and a few drinks under our belt, we took our seats perched in the same window we have been sitting out for 20 years and watched what stupid thing the kids would do next. At some point, Jen ran out with a helmet. It was declined.
Now, our days with them are limited. Maya will leave tomorrow and Jen’s two of three kids, who are still in college, will leave within the week. We sat today and remembered, laughed and told stories in between firing up hot chocolate and nachos for when they came in wet and loud and happy. We are moms together and have made magic out of the smallest things, but some days are just special. Some days are epic snow days. Some days are Jen days.
