Making Tracks

By Kat Bryant

The last box has been unpacked. My pictures and art are all on display. Front curtains are up. Storm doors are installed. Backyard is (mostly) squared away. Furballs have all settled in.

It’s time for my first out-of-town guest.

One of my oldest and dearest friends is coming up to stay with me for a few days this week, and I can’t wait to show her my new home and introduce her to some of my favorite places around the Harbor!

Lu and I met in 1989, the year we both were hired at a weekly business newspaper in Phoenix. We changed each other’s lives before we even became close friends.

At the time, I was Kathy and she was Cathy, and there was yet another Cathy on staff. The three of us got awfully tired of prairie-dogging every time someone hollered out our name in the newsroom, so each of us adopted a nickname to differentiate ourselves: I shortened mine to Kat, Cathy became Lu (the first part of her last name) and the other Cathy reverted to her full name, Catherine. All three of us still go by those names almost 30 years later.

Our shared love of movies, dogs, twisted humor and fast cars led us to spend a lot of time hanging out, and our friendship deepened over the years.

When my son was born, she was the first one who visited us in the hospital. When I finally built up the courage to leave my emotionally abusive husband, she took me into her home — along with my baby son and my pets (at the time, two dogs and two cats) — until I got my feet under me. When she had major surgery, I used two weeks of vacation time to fly down from the Bay Area (where I lived at the time) and take care of her at home. The list goes on and on. Basically, we’ve always been there for each other.

After the first decade, we were more like sisters than friends. My parents came to consider Lu one of their own, and her parents similarly adopted me and my son. She has always been “Auntie Lu” to Garrett, and her parents treated him as their own grandson. We were both single (most of the time), but between our two families, we were never alone for the holidays.

And we always laughed together at inappropriate things, especially when one of us was down. Because everything is a little funny between friends, right?

It’s been a bit of a transition, not having her as a movie buddy since I left Arizona almost three years ago. We used to go to lunch and a movie at least a couple times a month, and now I see only two or three new releases a year.

I also miss getting calls like this: “Hey Katster, I’ve got the new (Mustang/Cooper/Corvette/Your Fave Here) this weekend. Wanna go on a day trip?” See, Lu has retired as a full-time editor and reporter, but she still writes a weekly car review. She owns a car, but almost never has to drive it because there’s been a new vehicle in her driveway with a full tank of gas every few days for the past 25 years or so.

But most of all, I miss hanging out with my bestest friend. So I’ll be doing a lot of that this weekend, all over the Harbor.

We’ll be the wacky old broads zipping around in a nice new vehicle on loan from a manufacturer, laughing way too hard at inappropriate things. Because, really, everything is a little funny between friends.

Otherwise, where’s the joy in life?

Kat Bryant is lifestyle editor of The Daily World. Assuming she survives this weekend, she’s just about ready to throw a housewarming party. Reach her at kbryant@thedailyworld.com or on Facebook at Kat Bryant-DailyWorld.