three m’s and a k
Posted by laralynnian on 17 Nov 2007 at 08:02 pm | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Today we had an impromptu visit from a friend I’d missed dearly for the past five or six years. Miko and I met on our year abroad in Grenoble, France, then roomed together at UCLA our senior year. We stayed tight in SF through the dot com boom, then parted ways sometime around the bust and the birth of her daughter, Mia. Without thought, our lives split in two directions and before we knew it we’d lost touch.
Our roads are converging once again. She’s one of my few friends also living with a blended family (her boyfriend Arno has two school-aged kids in their Modesto house along with six-year-old Mia), we’re both trying to balance family with a web-related career, and we both still have a soft spot for France if not the French (ok, on the latter it’s complex…)
Melina got some cool new shoes from Carrefour (the French “hypermarket” grocery store with everything), and also a chance to hang with an older sister-like figure. It was fun watching how Mia interacted with Melina compared to Kai. They both offer hugs, story-time, and play, but at least in this case the “nature” stereotype holds true: Mia has a much gentler touch, while Kai must seem like a big, comical cartoon character to Kai (Joey’s words, not mine). Btw, Kai felt offended when I told him this, though it was meant as a compliment. No one can make Meli laugh like her big bro.