Friends

          How many friends do you have? I have never had very many friends. And I consider myself a friendly person. I can usually count the number of friends I have on one hand. What is a friend, anyway?  We have different words for friends--buddies, buds, pals, mates, homies. Friend is a word that people define in many different ways. For me, a friend is someone who shares similar likes and dislikes as me. It is someone who I  like to hang out with, can go to if I need help, talk with or ask for advice, or even borrow a little money from if I am in a bind. I like spending time with a friend and can talk about pretty much anything. There was a popular program on TV a few years ago called Friends,  about a group a friends who share an apartment in New York City. I saw it a few times.

I saw something on the Internet recently that the average American has between five and ten friends. I have a best friend from high school that I still keep in touch with more than 40 years later. I still consider him a good friend. I have a couple of very good friends in Mexico. Even if I don't see them for years at a time, when I do see them again, I have the same feelings of friendship towards them.

 How many "friends" do you have on Facebook?  Most Americans have about 500 Facebook "friends."  Really?  How many of those "friends" do they even know?  Sometimes the word friend is confused with acquaintance and colleague, someone who we know or work with, but are they really friends?  Sometimes we might worry that we don't have enough friends. If you are living in the US and want to learn American English, it would be a good idea to have some American friends. Speaking with Americans is probably the best way to learn American English. Maybe we should focus on the the quality of our friendships and not the quantity. So, how would you define friend?  How many friends do you have? If you are an international student, do you have American Friends?

Birthdays Past and Present

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm not going to say which one. I had a great time with my family and friends. We had a Mexican-style barbecue (carne asada)and birthday cake. My daughter Carolina gave me a pair of BB target pistols with plastic BBs. Some of us guys went out in the backyard for some target practice. The pistols were very accurate from about 10-15 feet. We soon discovered that the impact of the BBs was not that great, so we ended up running around (moving targets) the yard shooting each other in the butt. We had a blast.

When I was a kid your birthday was a highlight of the year. My mother would say that the birthday boy or girl was "King/Queen for the Day." I remember getting cool presents like a baseball glove, a bicycle, and a BB gun. My Mom would always say that the Birthday King/Queen could have anything to eat. My favorite was Campbell's Beef Soup and banana cream pie. Of course we'd always have a special birthday cake and ice cream, too. Our family tradition was that just before the Birthday King/Queen blew out the candles, someone would say "Don't spit on the cake!"

When you get a little older, birthdays are still fun, but in a different way. Birthdays on the "milestone" years (30,40,50) can be a little unnerving. It's more about spending time with family and friends, getting silly birthday cards and goofy presents like BB pistols, and not so much about getting lots of presents. I am already looking forward to my birthday next year!

One of my best birthday presents this year was a cool Hawaiian shirt from by best buddy Nick (see my May 11 blog, "Finding Nick"). Nick and I were best friends in high school and then went our separate ways and lost track of each other until last year when we connected via the Internet. Nick remembered that we bought each other matching shirts from the small department store where we worked for our 15th birthdays (Nick's is on May 20, mine on May 26). I have no memory of this, but it's too crazy to make up. So we decided to start a tradition and buy each other "matching" birthday shirts each year. I sent him a Black silk Hawaiian shirt last week and yesterday a similar green print Hawaiian shirt appeared via UPS. So I guess they are matching shirts-- same style, different colors.