Roommate Reunion 2015

At some point during the past 10 years since I graduated college (side note: how is that possible????), I began trying to get together at least once a year with my college roommates Jessi and Shannon. Of course life sometimes intervenes (i.e., people have babies and by people I mean Jessi) and we can't always get together, but for the past 7 or 8 years we have managed to make a yearly reunion happen more often than not. But this year, my year to host the reunion, I was no longer living in Texas, a place conceivably within driving distance of Arkansas and Tennessee where Jessi and Shannon reside. I was in faraway Oregon. So it was a bit of a surprise when one day in July I woke up with no notion of an upcoming reunion and went to bed knowing that two of my best friends had plane tickets booked for September. Some things are just meant to be. September arrived and so did Jessi and Shannon. Although of course it was not quite that straightforward as I will get to in a moment. We enjoyed a long weekend of good times, lots of laughs, relived memories, and very little sleep with copious amounts of coffee to compensate.

I'm trying to pretend that I'm okay with being wake right now -Cora

If a quote could sum up an entire weekend, it would be this one. The trip started off with an unexpected twist when Jessi called to share that her flight had been cancelled. I had picked Shannon up from the airport in Eugene and we were killing time at, where else, Target, before returning to the airport to pick up Jessi later in the evening. Or so we thought. Following a somewhat panicked phone call from Jessi, we quickly worked to get Jessi rebooked on another flight. That got into Portland. At midnight. So we did what any reasonable people would do, we decided to buy matching coffee mugs, supplies to make a welcome sign, and party hats. Because what airport greeting would be complete without party hats?

Shannon and I spent the 2 hour drive mostly talking about my new boyfriend. After she agreed that she didn't mind hearing everything twice when Jessi inevitably would want to have the same conversation.

I loved the sign! It was like a painful joy. -Jessi

We managed to make it back to Roseburg around 4 am. To Shannon and Jessi, that felt like 6 am and the two of them had both been awake for over 24 hours. What a way to begin. And if one should begin as one plans to continue, we did just that - going to bed too late and waking up too early. That just meant we had a constant excuse to drink coffee.

Not pictured: At least 5 other instances when we drank coffee. And yes, I realize they were here for like 4 days and we drank enough coffee to last a normal person at least a month.

Because a sleep-deprived, coffee fueled weekend was not quite enough exhaustion for one week, we woke up at 3 am on Wednesday so I could drive them to the airport for their early morning flights... before going to work at 8 am.

Anyone want to guess how much coffee I consumed that day?

How do I get in on that? -Jessi

One of the benefits of having best friends around is exploiting them for their talents. Like back rubs and fixing hair and fashion advice.

For a 4-day stretch in September, I had good hair thanks to Shannon. 

Cora, you need an Oregon makeover!! -Jessi and Shannon

Shannon, are you really going to wear Chacos with that... - Jessi

In addition to great hair, friends can also provide fashion advice, solicited and otherwise. Which could explain how I ended up with a shopping bag big enough for me to fit into full of new clothes.

That (insert meal here) was so good/yummy/delicious -improvised by Cora to transition to a discussion of food

Okay, so that quote generally reflects the fact that we ate a lot of really great food while Shannon and Jessi were here. Roseburg is not exactly known for being a foodie destination, but happens to have exactly the number of good restaurants you need to get through a long weekend without actually cooking. Stay any longer than that and you're out of options and stuck with fast food, but at least you can eat well for a weekend.

There is more to share, but a weekend with two of my favorite people cannot possibly be summed up in one post. Stay tuned for more about gray hairs, misunderstandings about trips to Antartica, and probably more coffee.