Sharky

My friend Sharky is like a sister to me. Like a sister is supposed to be, like on TV, and in movies. Not like my real sisters with whom I have very painful relationships. Sharky and I have been friends, our parents and older siblings claim, since we were fetuses. Sharky's been married to another one of my good friends, Sensei, for, lemme do the math, sixteen years. I met him a long time ago when he and Sharky were dating. He was a nice man, still is, and a really good Dad, and husband, and friend. Sharky's really cool, and a major freaking geek. She wears glasses, and has since I can remember. When we were little she always got in trouble for kicking the shit out of other kids. They had it coming. She is a soccer Mom who hates soccer Moms. Now that she is done breeding and lactating, she has gleefully returned to caffeine, chocolate and alcohol. She cracks me up with the rum and cokes because she gets buzzed off like half an ounce of rum in a 12-ounce glass over the course of an afternoon.

Sharky had a pretty crappy childhood too, worse than mine. Her parents got divorced when she was in grade school. Having had such a tough time growing up, Sharky made up her mind she was going to be a good Mom and be there for her kids. Sharky and Sensei have four kids who are some of my favorite little people in the world, actually nowadays a couple of them are more like medium people then little people. They have Charlie who is in fifth grade, Sally who is in third grade, Lucy who is in kindergarten, and Linus who is too little for any school just yet. Their kids are such different people from each other, it is amazing to me to watch them grow up.

When my Dad died Sharky was the first person I called after my older sisters. Sensei was a pallbearer. When my Mom died nine days later, they were the first people I called again. Sharky came with me to make the arrangements for my Mom. Church totally killed us all when my Dad died. We could not take watching another coffin going up and down all those stairs again. We had a nice service at the funeral home for my Mom where we could be much more irreverent. I do not remember much of anything about it at all, but my friends tell me it was nice. Sharky also made me feel a lot better about the whole crapfest about my birthday. I was so upset about it when my parents died, Sharky told me "Lana, sometimes my kids do stuff that make me want to peel off my skin and die, but I still love them all the time, and nothing they ever do could make me not love them. Your Mom and Dad love you like that too." Like I said, Sharky is pretty cool.