Old friends

The first time I ever hung out with Mary we were fourteen years old. She had just moved to Amherst, NH and she hated me because she thought I was "too nice."

Then we decided to hang out one night. We got stoned (my first time), watched Dirty Dancing, and ate raw cookie dough out of the Pillsbury tube. Thereafter we were inseparable.

Mary is visiting me from Portland, OR this week. Tonight we decided to chase that feeling.

Incidentally, when I caught up with Mary for the first time in half a decade about a year ago and told her about my Undercover Blonde project, she just laughed: "I don't get it, Kir. To me, you were always blonde."

bunny leblanc

My best friend's Grandma passed away this week. Since my own grandparents died when I was very young she was like a surrogate grandmother to me. So of course I wanted to pay my respects at the memorial services held in her honor at Manchester Country Club this afternoon.

After a brief eulogy the officiant encouraged us all to make our way up to the podium to share our very own thoughts and memories about Bernadette "Bunny" Crowley, nee LeBlanc. "It can be anything," she coaxed, "a special story you have about Bunny, something in your daily life that will always remind you of her, any happy memories of her that you may have. Anything."

Her voice sounded so earnest as she tried to get us all to participate (presumably to deflect any of the inherent awkwardness present in any funereal setting.) And truly, I wanted to be brave for my best friend, for her wonderful mother, for their entire family, and to step up to the podium (and minimize that awkwardness), take the mic in my hand and share my very own Grandma memories.

I thought long and hard about what my talking points would be. And I realized: the things I remembered best about Grandma were the bawdy things she used to say to me, not one of which would be appropriate to share in the middle of a high-class country club in front of god-fearing people gathered for a religious memorial service.

So I'll share them here:

About any moderately-attractive-to-good-looking man: "He's handsome! He can put his shoes under my bed anytime!"

When asked about her affinity for romance novels: "I'm old! I gotta get my kick somehow!!!"

Her answer when I foolishly asked if she was part Irish: "Irish? Oh, no, no, no, my husband was Irish. I'm all French -- French Canadian. But I'm Irish by injection!"

Thinking about Grandma now, I realize: this wonderful, vibrant, elderly woman was our very own bold, brazen, in-the-flesh Mae West. Unlike any other woman I've ever met, but exactly how I hope to be when I'm in my 80s.

I guess with a name like Bunny LeBlanc, what do you expect? With a name like Kitty, do you think I'm already predestined for such greatness?

best friends...

...there's nothing in the world like them.




You may think you've become so grown up when you toast your most recent successes over dinner together.

But the camera will show, you both still look as silly as you did in 10th grade.







In fact, you love each other even more now, because instead of dreaming about the big bad world out there, beyond the doors of your '85 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and your cigarettes and Amherst, NH, you've gone out & lived in it. And some places look surprisingly the same as others, like Siena, Italy, a place that looks, from these pictures, quite a lot like Manchester, NH, with it's graffitti and it's grit...

And you've survived each other's losses, through thick and thin. And look how strong you are to show for it now. A veritable force to be reckon with.

But then again, maybe you always were that way...