Pajama stories from Chile

I was afraid this would go unnoticed, so I am reposting it here. Lydia, you have privileges to post as well as comment, I think. I am still learning my way around the site...
From Lydia:
My grandmother and my mother have been writing on these boards for sometime. I’ve only recently been invited into the mix, just in time for my grandmother’s Pajama post; and what a post it was. (I read them backwards, grandma’s post before mom’s, even though they were written the other way around) It got me thinking of my own relationships. My circle of influential people has come up in several recent ruminations, as my recent move to Chile has more clearly defined the list.Back to the Pajama topic…I am lucky enough to have found my ‘Penny,’ her name is Rhea. Rhea and I were in many overlapping circles of friends for 3 years of college but never really formed a bond until senior year when we shared an apartment with 4 other girls (Oh that is full of stories, but I will save that for another day). In that house we learned to do all of the cooking and cleaning things without getting in each-others’ way, much like grandma mentioned in her post. And there were many talks with laughter and tears, a few couch-potato weekends with lots of junk food, many Grey’s Anatomy viewings and a few random dance-parties as well, all in pajamas.After college we both moved for jobs but ended up only about 1.5hrs apart. As I was in a small town with little weekend entertainment, most weekends I packed up my overnight bag and left directly from work to go spend the weekend with Rhea. No need to stress about what to bring, we’d make do with whatever I had and whatever she had. Now I have moved to Chile and it is a 10 hour flight rather than a 1.5 hour drive in order to visit…Grandma wrote in an earlier post about her personal “circle of life.” What she didn’t mention is that working with children for so long, then with their parents and now with the elderly, she has become a wonderful conversationalist, or better perhaps better put, storyteller. For me, going from child to teen to adult brought many different topics to conversation between my grandmother and I and she has never ceased to surprise me. Like so many others, I conveniently forgot that she had a life before me! I hope she continues telling me stories… And I can speak from the other side of my grandma’s comment regarding mother-daughter pajama time. I am a little older now than my mom was when she and my grandmother moved from parent/child to parent/friend/grown-woman-child, yet I have grown to treasure that same bond. When you stop to think about it, it is really the best of both worlds. I get to be a friend when I want, but still reserve the right to act completely childish when I want to, what could be better??My mom and I used to meet halfway between our respective residences on some Saturday nights. We would take a bottle of wine and spend one night talking in the hotel then head back to our homes. Again, then I moved to Chile and one day meet-ups are no longer an option…Fortunately the magic of Skype does occasionally provide some pajama-esque conversations, though they are fewer and farther between. Even more fortunately for me, both my mom and Rhea have visited me in the past few months, and for that I consider myself truly lucky. But I have to say that even the visits are not the same. Too many expectations and the addition of the SOs (my dad, my bf - Pololo - and Rhea’s bf) mean that the mix is different and conversation is not as easy. Pololo is happy to do his own thing while I talk for hours on end, but language barriers and no-bonds between him and the other SOs mean that they do not go off on their own and leave us ladies to talk until our throats go dry. Such is life, I guess. And I am happy to have these people with whom I can so easily talk for hours. No pretences or pressures, just gabbing. Now if we could only figure out a way for mom’s wish to come true everything would be perfect! We could all go about our respective lives, but regularly end up in pajamas and recliners with bottles of wine…the perfect recipe to solve all of the world’s problems.