If I Had a Friend...

I'm beat.

For the first time in...a wicked long time, I collapsed on my bed with my shoes on and nearly fell asleep at 5:15PM. My body aches, my pants have fresh olive oil on them from kneeling on some strays; and crumbs, olive tree bits and dirt are clinging to my socks. It took us all day, but we picked 13 cassettes (crates) of olives for pressing.

We started working at 8:30AM, stopped at some point to have sausage and pork liver sandwiches (I gave my liver to Ian...) and Sicilian cannolies for dessert, then continued until after sun set which is around 5. Maybe not the best idea in the world, but I zipped off my zip-off pants and wore shorts most of the day to bare my soul and leg hairs to the two unknowing men we worked with as well as our hostess's Roman parents. Take me or leave me! Shorts was a bad idea only in that my legs have so many scratches I can either shave around them in patches... or wait until they heal and resist the urge to blind everyone with their whiteness again. It's so good to be working outside and to eat by a fire. I never used to like sausage, but apparently I wasn't hungry enough. Not sure what it would take for me to eat liver though.

If I had a friend here, as I'm imagining now we would...

- trade back rubs
- brush each other's hair (I used to think this was weird until I got used to it)
- rant and rave about how wonderful the warm night is (because, ideally, we'd be near the equator)
- have coffee
- eat chocolate/dessert
- read out/share things we've learned today
- listen to Ray LaMontagne
- watch Madagascar and eat digestive biscuits with Nutella (and double dip)
- pray
- challenge each other
- plan a crazy adventure after college
- look up YouTube videos
- find something to laugh hysterically about
- pile into the car and go to Wegmans or to look for something to do
- walk around town
- cook something
- read in the same room (some people think this is weird, but if we're really friends, it's weird if we don't)
- go to church and inevitably end up at Javas
- (in a perfect world) enjoy the smell of Lady of the Night coming in the windows

We would talk about God and life because at the end of the day, that's all we have. And chocolate. We'd probably need some chocolate too.