Thanksgiving weekend we took a day trip into the mountains with some friends to chop down a Christmas tree. Mind you, this was no froo froo tree farm with hot cocoa and carolers… this was THE MOUNTAINS.

(As we’ve discovered before, when the Zugs do something we go all the way).

We bought a $10 permit from the forest service and wound our way up one of their treacherous, winding roads in our ’95 Honda Odyssey with two wheel drive and questionable tire traction, following along behind our two friends in their identical Subaru 4 wheel drives.

I’m not going to lie to you – IZE TERRIFIED of that drive. Somewhere between now and my daring twenties I lost my chops and everything makes me nervous. Maybe the closer you get to 40 the more aware you are of your mortality, but let me just admit that I was NOT TRUSTING JESUS as we fishtailed around those hairpin turns with only a snow bank to keep us from employing the local search party operation.

But alas. we soon met a stalled car on the road in front of us and couldn’t gain our traction again in the snow. We had to abandon ship and hop into one of the Subarus.

The kids and I waited in the back of our friend’s car a few dozen yards up the road while the men heaved and pushed our minivan to the side of the road. I felt much better there, not able to witness whether or not Bryan would end up at the bottom of a ravine.

I prefer my tragedies to surprise me.

It was exhilarating to play in the snow. At one point Ruthie and I had to tromp off to find a bush *cough* and stepped into a snow drift up to my waist.

Wow. I mean, I’m the kid who used to JUMP off my roof into a pile of snow. Now I’m the middle aged mom who FALLS into a drift while trying to not pee her pants.

Chopping down a tree from the side of the mountain challenges one’s perspective. I kept pointing out THAT ONE! WHAT ABOUT THAT ONE? IS THAT ONE GOOD? Because I was all, “Whassamattah? We have nine foot ceilings!”

But, yeah. Check out our itty bitty TEN FOOT TREE next to its ginormous counterpart:

Our friends think they may have scared us away, but we’re totally going again next year. We had a great time, and this was the healthiest, cutest tree we’ve ever had.

I’d seen Bryan around, but I first noticed him when he officially introduced himself to the group at a staff meeting. He was from southern Colorado, his wife left him, and he came to Seattle trying to make sense of the last six years of his life.

I took note.

It wasn’t that I reveled in rescuing lost puppies; but rather, because he suffered, I knew he wasn’t shallow.

I look around me now, at my closest friends, and they all know or have experienced suffering. Some I have watched suffer; some suffered before I knew them. But it is their Story of pain and tragedy that allows me to trust them, to let them watch me as I writhe in my own confused, dark places.

I’ve had a few people tell me I’m stand-offish, that I’m hard to get to know. This confused me, because my commitment to friends is deep and forever. But when I think about it, when I think about who makes these claims, I realize it’s the people I don’t really know – the ones who lie to themselves and everyone else about their suffering, who want to pretend they have it together, who avoid suffering at all costs.

And they’re right: I’m stand-offish to them.

I have to be, because in relationship I don’t hide much, and it would be foolish for me to expose myself to the untested.

A few years ago I lost a friend. She met me on the doorstep as I came to pick up my kids at her house, and she told me we couldn’t be friends anymore. She didn’t really explain, and it didn’t make any sense. Conflict was happening around us, but I wrongly assumed we were tight, that we would persevere, that our friendship could withstand it all.

Ironically, as I walked over to pick up my children that morning I felt compelled to acknowledge all that was swirling around us. I was planning to tell her I loved her, and that I wanted us to pray together for Peace in the midst of The Ugliness, and that I wanted to wrestle through our friendship.

So her confrontation was quite a blow.

But it let me know I had chosen wrongly in her as a friend, that my vulnerability was given to her untested. As the following weeks unraveled, everything I thought I knew about our friendship turned out to be a polite facade that covered gossip, disdain, and betrayal. Despite the fact I could see how she suffered, it turns out she never let me in. She was pushing me away, and I never even saw it.

It took two and a half years for me to understand this – to understand we did not feel the same way about suffering and friendship. In fact, I don’t think I understood it until around paragraph seven of this post.

Thankfully, that experience did not cause me to retract my vulnerability, but it did open my eyes to Caution. I think back on what it is I saw in Bryan, and in my friends, that drew me in to their Story – and I believe it is the limps and scars and weathered skin that tell me I’d be safer in their boat than in a greenhorn’s.

I had dinner last night with a new friend at a new (to me) restaurant in the Big City. I parked my car a block away so as to not completely embarrass her with my well used, dented, unwashed mini van in need of a good decluttering – no sexy single girl wants to be seen out on the town with THAT.

(Truth be told, neither do I).

She arrived first, and when I got there she says we can either wait for a table or sit at the community table. With a smile, I masked a flash of panic at talking to strangers all night on a first date, and agreed it would be FUN! YEAH, THAT SOUNDS FUN! THAT WOULD BE GREAT! YEAH, LET’S DO THAT!

Within 30 seconds of sitting down my new Friend Who Talks to Strangers introduced herself to the other couple sitting at the table, and as it turns out they know each other. Kind of. They both ride Dressage horses in Redmond – which I’m told is like horse ballet, so I can imagine it’s like a five katrillion to one chance we would end up sitting in a tiny Seattle restaurant together.

A third couple was seated next to us who turned out to be either sisters or friends – I can’t remember which one. We spent the evening ooooo-ing and aaaaahhhh-ing over each others’ plates of food, and actually passed one of ours around to be smelled by the others.

I had octopus for the first time, and Bryan is going to kill me for this because he’s always trying to get me to try octopus. But like everything else that is important to him, I only acquiesce if a chick friend also suggests it (Remember Freakonomics? Remember Iron Man? Remember white water rafting? Chicks all told me to do it). But it’s like I had no choice. My Friend Who Talks to Strangers was all, if you like mussels and if you like scallops, you will like octopus, which to me sounded like a triple dog double dare. Of course I loved the octopus. But this place cooked everything to such perfection, and in the most exquisite sauces, that I think I would have died and gone to heaven had they served me snow tires for dinner.

By the time we reached the chocolate crepes and dessert wine portion of the meal (!!!) we were all exchanging business cards with one another. I was fascinated by the gal sitting across from me who bought land with her husband about an hour north of Seattle and started a winery. They are attorneys. They are city people. They’ve never done this before. I was all, YOU HAVE TO START A BLOG!

Their first harvest after five years of growing will be this October, and I suggested she host a special wine tasting for Seattle bloggers to help spread the word. In fact, I now think she should host a special wine tasting for Seattle moms for which I can hook her up with some extra special Mommy Needs A Glass of Wine shirts. If you’re reading this, New Friend from the Community Table Whose Name I Didn’t Catch, please pull out that card I gave you and email me, because I would love love love love love to visit your winery.

As it turns out, I still have a brain. I am very happy with the life choices I’ve made, staying home with my kids. But sometimes when I find myself dining at a table with marketing directors, physicians and attorneys, I feel a slight stage fright when introducing myself as a stay at home mom – I assume the other person is making assumptions about me. But last night as we discussed Twitter and blogs and our kids and horse riding and pilates and wine making, I feared no assumptions. We were just six people brought together randomly by a unique dining experience, and we enjoyed the evening all the more because it.

As we parted for the night my new friend said I should pick the restaurant next time, and I was all, YOU MEAN WE GET A SECOND DATE? I think it was the new sexy jeans I was wearing. All I know is, I plan to call every restaurant in Seattle to find out who else has a community dining table.

(via email)

Her: I got your message and can’t seem to get through on your phone, I keep getting a busy signal.

Me: LOL. That busy signal probably means I’m on the phone.

Her: Dude, you so old school, i haven’t heard a busy signal since like 1998… ha ha…

I took a commercial break from life this evening to spend time with two soul sisters who are in town at the same time. Both women have participated in the reality of The Pile that is my life, having rented our spare room at different times over the last four years that we have been in this house. One moved back to the midwest to be near her family, the other is off at medical school on the East coast. Both have left a void in our hearts by leaving.

One of my favorite things ever is being totally entrenched in conversation about God and relationships and baggage and sin and redemption and covenant -

- and pausing for a moment in the midst of that conversation to consume my third tequila shot –

That, to me, is poetry.

This may not be for everyone, and I certainly don’t want to imply that I am again drunk blogging, and I definitely don’t want you to feel left out if you were not present. Let’s just say that despite my having been on vacation for 14 days, it felt really good to get out.

I was hoping to have my house put together more than it is, but when you have a friend visiting you FROM AUSTRALIA you’d best concern yourself with ending Pukefest 2007 first. The important thing is that I vacuumed the layers of cracker crumbs out from the between the couch cushions so I don’t look like a complete moron when we pull the bed out for him. The dining table full of clutter? We can eat out. The couch filled with loads of clean laundry? The area rug is pretty soft for sitting. I think we’ll be fine.

When I was a kid my parents once had friends visit us from Australia – they had met while traveling in Europe (my mom makes conversation with everyone, even Australians in Europe). But me? I met my Australian friend while sitting on my couch. I think he found my blog through this review I wrote for theooze.com, and because he commented a couple times I read his blog and we became commenting friends. And now? We’re stop #2 on his American Extravaganza! (My term, not his.)

Let that be a lesson to all you lurkers out there: YOU TOO could be sleeping on my Ikea pull-out couch if you were to just LEAVE A COMMENT.

Just checking in because I hate to see posts like this one sit at the top for too long, dragging everyone down. I actually pulled it together this afternoon: I had a good cry over a glass of wine, I had a good cry on the phone with a friend, then I rallied myself to dig out of the clutter that was suffocating my living room.

I recognized early on in my day that I was responding completely wrong to everything – not just in my actions, but in my heart. I’ve felt bitter, angry, and selfish this week – and I’m not even pms-ing. I knew this, yet the train had already left the station and I didn’t know how to turn it around.

When I explained all this to my friend on the phone, she stopped to pray for me right then and there. “Lord Jesus, please pull up the tracks of Jen’s day so her train derails.”

In that moment those words felt like the most powerful thing anyone’s ever said to me.

I find that I am still attempting to change my anger and control tendencies by asserting my own will against them. Just typing out that last sentence is laughable – controlling my control issues with more control. Ha! That’s funny.

So much more to write, but it’s after 11 and it’s good to end on a light note anyway.

Last night about nine or ten gals came over for a Recipe Swap and Menu Planning Party that I hosted. The group was mixed, consisting of friends from all different compartments of my life, including local bloggers.

I didn’t really plan to have a format, so everyone just brought their cookbooks and notebooks and index cards and we swapped swapped swapped. We mingled, and chatted, and nibbled on veggies and called out things like, “Anybody need a good enchilada recipe?” or “Does anyone know how to make pesto?” or my personal favorite, “Tell everyone about that great chicken dish YOU make, Jen!” (Nothing like a little flattery to get you multiple dinner invites).

We had great fun, and I hope to do something like it after Thanksgiving – maybe something crafty-like, or maybe we can all get together and address our Christmas cards together. Or whatever. I just think it’s fun to get together!

Leah of My Pink Toes had to cancel at the last minute, but she wrote up a blog post about it and left us with a few recipes.

Annagrace at Love Drunk lives a little too far to attend, but coincidentally, she had this recipe on her blog this week.

And Dacia also posted many of her favorite recipes at her lovely craft blog, here.

If you have a favorite recipe to share, leave it in the comments or link to your own blog.

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I will also take this time to point out a few things about this picture (click to enlarge if you care to indulge me).

First of all, you will notice the pieces of orange streamer paper taped into each corner near the ceiling. These are left over from Ruthie’s birthday party TWO YEARS AGO when I yanked them down. The pieces stuck to the tape didn’t come down, and here they still sit.

Secondly, you will notice the faux iron plate rack hanging off center above the piano. This used to hold a giant white platter, as I have storage issues in my kitchen. I have since decided to go completely IMpractical and hang a piece of art there. However, I cannot get the plate rack down. The screws are stripped or something, but the damn thing will not come off the wall.

You may have also noticed my latest organization project, which was to remove all the random photo frames off the piano and put them on the wall in hopes of eliminating clutter on the piano. They just always looked so terrible on the piano, and besides, that area needed some height. Hopefully I didn’t just make my wall look cluttered – what do you think?

And what you can’t see in the picture is that I rolled my kitchen island over to the wall under the window, opening up the kitchen wide and spacious. Wow! What a difference that made, and nobody was bumping into each other trying to pour a drink! I think I may just keep it over there and roll it back out into the middle when I need to cook.

Tonight as I pulled into the parking lot at Macy’s I was cat-called by a familiar voice behind me. I turned to discover that my friend and her husband were parked in their Toyota LANDCRUISER* drinking beer and smoking cigarettes like they were living out a scene from The Outsiders.

These are the same friends who, when I called them once to see if they could join us for a movie, declined because they were heading out to the mountains to drink Budweisers and shoot her old sewing machine to pieces. With an actual gun.

These are the same friends who’s son (who is three days older than Ruthie) rocks out to worship music at church like he’s front row at a KISS concert, while Ruthie flits about with her twirling and flitting.

God bless friends who keep it real.

*When my friend first acquired this car, every other word out of her mouth was LANDCRUISER, and she drawled out the word like it was in all caps: LAAAANDCRUISER.

I mock, but secretly, I was jealous of her LAAAANCRUISER.