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Woohoo graduates from college in 19 days. How is this possible? As they say, the days are long and the years are short. So true.

We decided we both needed new dresses and shoes for the big graduation. Not enough can really be made of this milestone, and new outfits would help to make a little more out of it. Sunday, Woohoo and I went to the mall where we've been together a million times, but not for a long, long time. That, in itself, was sentimental, just walking by the stores where we used to get her children's clothes, then her tween and teenage outfits. She's not much of a mall person these days, but recalls when going there was what she most wanted to do.

Times change.

Because Woohoo and I are similar shoppers (quick and efficient, no dilly-dallying), we were able to select our dresses and matching shoes pretty easily, and had plenty of time to go across the street and have a beer. Not enough can be made of having your children reach drinking age.

As we were leaving the mall, we spotted a woman who has a son that went kindergarten through high school with Woohoo. We stopped, visited, caught up, laughed and marveled that this woman and I met on a pre-dawn, chilly, dark January morning in 1999, as we stood in line outside the school, waiting to register our preschoolers in kindergarten. There weren't a lot of spots, and it was first come,  first serve. I was number 2 in line, she was number 3. We chatted. We got acquainted. 17 years later, there is still a strong thread that runs between our lives. Through 40th birthday parties, travel, divorce, re-marriage, the natural waning and waxing of most friendships, we have an unbreakable connection.

No accidents that we ran into her, of all people. She is a living bookmark of where we are now in the book of life, where we've been, and the exciting possibilities of where we will go.