Well, you couldn't really ask for a better group of friends than the ones that Ive got. Most people have one or two really close friends. Me, I consider most of my friends close.

I have a set of girlfriends that go as far back as Bernal Intermediate High School, where we played soccer together, (tomboys all of us), got into trouble, rode bikes everywhere. Fell in love with teenage boys, etc. We then progressed to Santa Teresa High School, and have remained friends ever since. That would be Jodie Hemmig Austin and Erin Powell Gress.

Jodie and Erin are each married now, Jodie to Ryan Austin with a young son named Gavin, and Erin to Rich Gress with a young daughter named Caitlyn. See pics. These two girls have been through everything with me. School, boys/men, sports, shopping, bridal showers, weddings, baby showers, my fathers illness and his passing away.

You couldn't ask for a better bunch of girls. These two sound like angels, but let me tell you they have tongues that can whip the worst sailor into shape! We all cap on each other, but are also there for each other! Now thats true friendship. Hell friendship, they're family. We walk into each others houses without knocking that's how close we all are.

Then there's the Rowan Family. I say family, because literally I am friends with each and every one of them. First off Julie. Julie Rowan Diaz is my best-girlfriend. She's the one I call at 2am to cry my eyes out about the boy who dumped me, or about the new boy I met. Her husband Paul Diaz is the man who has become my surrogate older brother. He tries to put me on a financial budget. Yells at me about my taste in men, or according to him, my lack of taste or just plain bad judgment in choosing men : - )~ He's fantastic! Too bad they live in Wichita, Kansas now. *sigh*

Bryan Rowan. The middle child of the Rowan kids. One year older than Julie and I and always my surrogate date for things or when I'm bored, can call him and get him to go out to dinner with me. Also tries to boss me around and put me on a budget.  He's like another surrogate brother and best-friend. Actually lives in San Jose, so we spend a lot of time together.  He's a fantastic person.  Plays saxophone and so I've been to probably 90% of his concerts in the last 5 years or so.

Bill Rowan. The oldest Rowan child. Billy is a hoot! I love spending time with him and his wife Anna. He is so damn manic and tells it like it is. Every time I'm around him I just crack up! They live in Philadelphia and are always willing to drive me to Pat's Cheesesteaks or Franzone's Pizza in Norristown!

Jennifer Howlett and Catherine Isaacs. What can I say about these girls? They keep me sane. Both of them work for IBM as well, so not only do we deal with private life stuff, we deal with professional life activities as well.

These two are understand everything from head to toe about me. We go to a variety of ahem, cultural events together--- if I can be so generous in calling them that. We've been to the SF Ballet, American Ballet Theatre performances, Alvin Ailey performances, etc. Have seen many plays together at the Geary Theatre, and have gone to several concerts together including: Tina Turner, Elton John, Earth, Wind and Fire, Chaka Khan, Rolling Stones, The Monkees, and even Harry Belafonte. : - )

Jennifer is affectionately referred to as both Auntie Mame to me, and JJ to everyone else. She is a Princeton Univ graduate and the "Font of All Knowledge", and also the tour guide around San Francisco. Catherine is from England, and when she first started working with us in Mountain View, CA, I was the first person who understood Catherine's accent and lingo, and helped with her transition from English-English to American-English, (as my mother is from England, that was an easy trick.) These two girls are just a hoot to hang out with. You never know what we're going to do . Once on a whim we decided to call the Kabuki Bath House to see if we could go, and of course, it was Ladies Night, so there we were, the three of us, and 20 other naked women. Like I said, you never know.

Then there's Tina Koltay. Roommate and Best-pal! This girl gets me into more trouble! We live together and have all of a sudden picked up some of each other's tastes. We come home from separate shopping sprees and have bought the same exact shirt from the Gap. Dorks! We've vacationed in Maui and gotten horribly drunk where we couldn't walk up the stairs in the restaurant--- okay, that was me while we were there...but thanks to that night, I now know how to scare away Bears! (Just ask us some time about that story!) We've hitch hiked with strangers in San Francisco because her feet hurt and we needed to get to the train station after KFOG's KABOOM. You name it, we've done it! I wouldn't trade her in for the world!

And now there's Jay Hauser, Rob Kenney, Dave Fies, Whitney Dunn and Steve Stept. These guys are NUTS! Lots of drunken nights playing board games, watching Penn State Football, BBQ's, and just plain ol' Friday and Saturday nights with no one else for us to turn to except each other and the bottles of booze in our cabinets or hitting Los Gatos, San Francisco and or Oakland. I love them all!

And finally, there is Curtis Meek. My ahem, husband. Meeks and I have been friends since high school. The two of us have been friends, not been friends, been friends, not been friends, etc. We fight and then we make up. We are SO much alike its funny. I adore Curt. He is a very special man. We call each other husband and wife because I was trying to get him the family IBM discount through AT&T, and when they said what relation are you to him, I said he was my fiance. It just sort of spewed out. Four years later, hes my husband, and Im his wife. Mind you, we date other people, and would never get married to each other, but its nice to know that I have a back-up plan for children...oh yeah, hes potentially my sperm donor if I don t meet anyone. Like I said, No one like him!   Love ya Meeks, you are the perfect Pointer! : - )

01 Sept '02

Speaking of friends, some of my very good friends include some work-colleagues from IBM's Hard Drive organization..including Caroline Sumners from the IBM UK office in Portsmouth.  When Caroline comes out to the states, we usually hang out for a couple of days.  Unfortunately this trip, we only hung out about 2 nights. One I cooked for her, (sorry about the dry chicken from the BBQ), and the second day she joined me and my friend Rich Smith, and his friend Rhonda and Doug on a trip up to Fairfield where we toured Budweiser and the Jelly Belly Factories, then from there, proceeded on to Berkeley for some Thai food.  We had a great time, and Rich walked our feet off around Berkeley, (People's Park, Telegraph Ave), it was a nice evening : - )~