And now we turn to another long time pal, Ms. Brook(i)e Cohen

SALLY’S 39TH BIRTHDAY

I'd be hard pressed to pick just one memory to share about Sally's and my friendship based on the simple fact that I can barely remember life before Sally, and as such, have so many memories floating in my head right now. You see we became friends in grade school. We had the fortunate fate of living a few blocks away from each other, so we rode our bikes back and forth from house to house on a regular basis. We shared the same hairdresser at Sassoon’s and hence donned the same bowl haircut. We both played fullback together on the Blue Panda soccer team (rather badly I might add as we were much more interested in singing and dancing and picking flowers than chasing after a ball). And we were often confused as one another on the soccer field (due to both the bowl haircut and the fact that we had the same lanky little bodies).

But not only did we share the close proximity of our homes, our school, our soccer team (which may have well been the last sports team either of us were on), we also shared many other things. For one, we shared birthdays. Sally's birthday is April 16, mine March 31, so as fellow Aries, we celebrated together often. One of my favorite parties I had as a little girl was our joint slumber/costume party where Sally was Minnie Mouse and I Mickey. It’s probably not a surprise to any of you that even at a young age Sal loved having a costume change at her party.

We also shared a love of singing. In school our voice teacher, Mrs. Grahnquist, had us singing duets at programs to songs we still laugh about today, and outside of school we started an air band called the Reflecting Waves. Yes, we thought we were so cool. I could say so much more here about our musical enterprises, but I’ll stop by simply saying, we were Madonna’s biggest fans and spent countless hours dancing in Sally’s room, singing Lucky Star.

The list of what we shared really does go on and on- family dinners, family vacations, family recipes, and endless numbers of sleepovers to name some. And the list of the similar things we enjoy is equally as long - a love of theater, a love of music, and a love of writing are just a few.



This good friendship that developed when we were very young, continues on even as we are wrapping up our thirties, and I have no doubt it will exist for the remainder of our lives. It seems like just yesterday we were little girls. As I sit and write, I’m having a hard time grasping we now are turning 39!

Friendships with such long and anchored roots are a treasure. I feel quite lucky that Sally and I have this type of friendship.

Happy birthday my friend.

I love you.

Brooke