This is Patricia. She is a beauty inside and out, and has no hang-ups about social media. On the other hand, there is Sharon who took the photo because she refuses to have her face on social media anything. (Either that or she is so hideous that I don’t like to include her in my social media posts. “Truth” is some kind of buffet, according to Drump, so go ahead and pick your poison.)

There are the cackle friends, and then there are the belly laughs friends. Sharon, Patricia and Carol are the belly laughs friends. Carol couldn’t join, so we’ll plan a trip out to visit her on a Friday night as soon as Ramadan is over, inshAllah. We missed her very much this evening.

We all met in 2007 at French language training and have maintained our friendships since. They are, simply, Love.

Love, hinged on the most inappropriate and politically incorrect comments imaginable. Like, for example, how Sharon (who is Black) said she would only go to Mississippi with me, because I am Muslim and they would come after me first, and she’d have time to run away.

When in fact, I clarified, they would kill me, then make her bury me in the cotton fields before they demanded she pick some.

Somewhere in there, she mentioned sister-wives and I lost it.

Carol always contributes to these ridiculous conversations, while Patricia – truly the kindest and gentlest among us, she who never utters a bad word – laughs until she cries.

We are all very lucky women to have met one another.

Today, I am grateful for:
1. Having a Member of Parliament to whom I can turn and table grave concerns.
2. Elgin Street Diner. This place is open 24 hours a day, and has been around for 26 years (hi ESD, please update the info on your website. Thank you). Many an essays were written there during my Uni days, many a night spent with their coffee and my girlfriends wrapping up and unhashing our days and weeks. Thank you for being such a staple; your poutine remains unmatched for this girl.
3. Blushing. It’s the human female’s equivalent of a female baboon’s swollen, red ass. Every time I think this, and I may be the only one who thinks this, I laugh. A lot. Usually by myself. Because I am a woman who blushes around the man she likes, and when she receives a compliment from said male. Thanks for the laugh, face-baboon-bum!

Ottawa | May 28, 2019

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