The Friendship Follies

Shhh . . . I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Brian and I are what I would describe as fairly good friends and writing partners. We chat, we laugh, we tease, and we give each other advice and support BUT ...

wait for it ...

Sometimes we just don't get along!

GASP! Perhaps it's hard to believe, but it is indeed true.

We discuss argue points big and little, blog related or not. We have our own opinions and we're not afraid to speak our minds. Once we had a heated disagreement about the use of the word "too." I am not making this up, we really did. I believe I won that battle, but I bet Brian would beg to differ. Recently we've had some talks about keeping up with this blog. Although we both agree on how often we should post, we vary on the amount of free time we have available to do so. In other words, I have have much more time on hand than Brian does as he is busy starting up his own consulting business. (My hubby T calls Brian the silent partner in this blogging alliance, but I sometimes call him something else, ha ha ha!)

Like characters in a movie, a TV show, or a cartoon, we tend to bounce back from our differences, work together, and remain friends in the end. That's all good. Even better is taking a close look at some famous fictional characters who, like Brian and I, sometimes seem like unlikely matches who deep down truly care for each other. Take these three good duos for example:

2. Will and Grace: To be fair, there is one notable difference between Brian and Will - Brian is not a lawyer. No, no, that's not it - he's not gay. However, Will and Grace are a quirky couple of friends. If once upon a time Brian and I were roommates, I think we would have been a lot like them. In this montage from the show, I like how Grace seeks Will's fashion advice and he doesn't hold back his thoughts. The very end of the clip cracks me up too!



3. Harry and Sally from When Harry Met Sally: If you take out the fairly tale ending to this story when Harry finally professes his undying love for Sally, Brian and I are a lot like this pair of friends from one of my favorite movies of all time. In fact, I can imagine us having a conversation just like this:

Harry Burns: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally Albright: Which one am I?
Harry Burns: You're the worst kind; you're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance.
Sally Albright: I don't see that.
Harry Burns: You don't see that? Waiter, I'll begin with a house salad, but I don't want the regular dressing. I'll have the balsamic vinegar and oil, but on the side. And then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side. "On the side" is a very big thing for you.
Sally Albright: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry Burns: I know; high maintenance.

And for the record, we both disagree with the premise of the movie that men and women cannot be platonic friends - my take on the subject, and Brian's point of view.

1. Dory and Marlin from Finding Nemo: On his quest to find Nemo, Marlin meets up with Dory who joins in the search. They do not always get along swimmingly, and at one point Marlin believes he should continue his mission on his own. Of course, Dory and Marlin stick together in the end just like us.

Our Go-To Good Condiments

The other night for dinner, I made some fish fillets and fries, and lo and behold, we didn't have any tartar sauce in the house. We also didn't have the ingredients on hand to make homemade tartar sauce, so we turned to the number one condiment 'round these parts . . .

2. Ranch dressing! It's not just for carrot sticks or chicken nuggets anymore. My kids will dip almost anything into ranch dressing and eat it without complaining. We use it on tortilla wraps and sandwiches, and with those pillowy puffs of pizza dough goodness known as beer nuggets - an NIU favorite! Three out of four of us in the family will actually use ranch as a salad dressing. Which reminds me of a silly joke: What did the bottle of ranch say when someone left the refrigerator door open?
"Hey, close the door! I'm dressing in here!"

We discovered that fish fillets are not too bad with ranch dressing. Then, we discussed our other must-have-in-da-house condiments (Yes indeed, we have quite the intellectual dinner conversations.) Anyhoo, here's our other favs:

3. Ketchup! (or if you prefer catsup) No big surprise there. Who doesn't like ketchup?

1. Barbecue sauce! I love Sweet Baby Ray's the best, but we did bring some home from a BBQ joint in Toledo that was really tasty. We use BBQ sauce on grilled meats like ribs, for pulled pork or chicken, on mini-meatloaves, in chili, and as a dipping sauce of course.

What are your go-to good condiments? Do you like salsa?

I voted, did you?

Short and sweet, and mostly tongue in cheek.
Three good things about voting in today's election:
2. No waiting at my polling place.
3. No more political commercials on TV (I can now focus on the Christmas adverts that started before Halloween. Groan - I'm talking to you Target.)
1. I got a cute little red, white, and blue sticker as proof of carrying out my civic duty.
Here's to democracy in action!