Yesterday I drove to Loveland, CO to visit my friend Bhanu. Bhanu is a “failed American writer,” as she puts it, but in fact, that’s far from the truth. As someone more accurately put it this summer: “Knock knock. Who’s there. Bhanu. Bhanu who. Bhanu is the author of thirteen thousand books.”

I needed to get out of Boulder, she needed some social interaction, so we made a plan to meet in the afternoon, after I taught my class. Loveland is only a little north of Boulder – less than an hour away – but I had never been there before. It’s adorable!

Lots of things happened.

1. Bhanu bought me a burrito at a tiny local eatery for $2. She told me that it is the owner’s grandmother’s recipe. I am, of course, a sucker for grandmothers and their recipes. The burrito was very good.

2. I told her that I saw one of her books at Powell’s when I was in Portland this summer:

She seemed surprised.

3. We had Americanos at a newly remodeled bookstore, which had lots of the original Nancy Drew books. I almost bought #2, The Hidden Staircase, because I don’t remember what happens in the book but I remember really liking it. It was only $3.50. But I decided against it as I have too much reading as it is. Someday. Meanwhile, Bhanu performed a dangerous balancing act akin to the balancing acts we all perform every day:

4. We walked around.

5. We went into an antique store that Bhanu had somehow never been in before. It was next door to another store run by a woman who makes bird nests and cries. (We did not go into that store.) In the antique store, there were lots of old books, including a book by Heidegger with a giant swastika on the cover (holy yikes!) and a book about cats with a weird, huge painted angry cat face on the cover. There was also a turn of the Century book called Etiquette for the 20th Century. I opened the book to a random page to see what sort of advice it might have to offer. This is what it said:

Well, shit! That’s going to disappoint a lot of people.

6. Bhanu saw a saber tooth tiger.

7. We talked about gin & tonics, which we both look forward to drinking at some point. Bhanu will very soon be on her way back to England for a few weeks, and apparently, that’s all they have to drink there. I haven’t been to England since 1998, so I don’t remember this phenomenon. Bhanu grew up there, so she knows better than I do. She plans to have one on the airplane.

8. We decided we needed a snack and bought some salt and vinegar potato chips. They were delicious.

9. We talked about clowns and a Subaru she once bought for $400 which was actually worth $8000. She currently owns a stolen car.

10. It was made clear to me that I need to read Mindy Kaling‘s memoir. Mindy Kaling is my friend Brenda’s best friend, a fact that Bhanu was positively thrilled to learn. When Brenda and I met, we bonded over the fact that we both had best friends named Mindy, a phenomenon which has occurred with several of my friends: there are a lot of best-friend-Mindys out there, apparently. My Mindy is a massage therapist and chef living in Telluride, CO. I haven’t seen her in ages. This is what we used to look like:

11. Bhanu and I discovered that we both harbor a secret desire to be a truck driver, or as she put it, “a long haul lorry driver.” Just think of the things we could see, the songs we could sing?

12. After standing around on the sidewalk for a long time talking, Bhanu bid me farewell to go buy socks and I drove back to Boulder. I thought about going to see the screening of a film that I am in, but decided to clean my bathroom instead. I get weirded out seeing myself on film or video. Maybe I’ll see it someday.

All in all, it was a wonderful day. Insight, jokes, gossip, reassurance, and potato chips were shared. An Ice Age followed by a welcome thaw was predicted. On the drive home, this song shuffled on my iPod: