It's this girl's birthday today.  

I met her in 1989.  She was too cool to be friends with me then - but eventually I won her over, and we became the best of friends.

We would listen to 50's music and dance in the basement, go for walks up mountain sides and look out at ocean vistas, skip school and ride in logging trucks, drive back and forth in car washes, eat yummy food, watch the Rosie O'Donnell Show, take ballet classes, sit next to each other at lunch, sing next to each other in choir, go sledding down steep snow covered mountain roads, hide candied valentine hearts so we could eat them all by ourselves, watch movies and eat popcorn, run and slide to safety from charging cows, dance ourselves silly at school dances, camp on beaches with friends, and canoe away from angry sea lions in the dark.

But most importantly she was there.

We could talk for hours, we would laugh so hard our sides would ache and tears would come streaming out of our eyes

I loved her then, and I love her still.

Happy Birthday Roberta!