This past weekend found me in Ottawa, visiting with my very best, long-time (15 years!) friend, Andrea. I usually go there every summer to get in some really satisfying girl time, at least one long walk through The Byward Market, a beer on a gorgeous cobble-stone patio, some shopping in The Glebe and lots and lots of food and wine. We have this tradition of making large platters of cheeses, meats and various other crudities and trekking them out onto her balcony with a rather large pitcher of sangria. We sit, eat, talk, eat, sip, sit, talk, eat, sip, eat, giggle, sip, sip, giggle some more and talk some more and eat some more and sip some more. It really is a nice way to spend a weekend and we both return to our regularly scheduled, sometimes hectic lives on Sunday evening, the better off for having indulged.

Girl time is just so drastically different than any other time -- especially when it is spent with Andrea. We have claimed since high school to share a brain -- never certain who has it at any given time. She lent me the whole brain a few times in nursing school and I'm sure she had it in university...at least during the week. Now we can't tell who has it generally -- there is a fine, quite blurry line between what she thinks and what I think and we usually agree on everything on both sides of that line. It is one relationship that has stood the tests of time, stress, separation, more time, more stress, and the distance between Ottawa and Toronto (about a 5 hour bus ride).

Although I go there every summer (except for some reason last summer) there was indeed a special reason for my trip this time, and I don't only mean the delicious Berry-Filled Sangria we enjoyed on Saturday night. Since I am a firm believer in telling people important life-altering decisions in person whenever possible, I made this trip to tell my oldest and dearest friend that S. and I are getting married, to show her the ring and to ask her (along with my younger sister) to stand up with me at our wedding. What better reason is there to share a pitcher of sangria?