Friend Spotlight: Bromleys

I love blogging. I can be a bit of a snoop, er, researcher. And blogging is like sanctioned nosiness. Approved prying in the affairs of others. Does it get better than this?

Sometimes I happen on someone's blog through another site. And I read comments. And I get curious about commenters. So, I click on their names and visit their blogs. I know, it's like a total obsession. Or compulsion. Either way it doesn't matter, most people think those two words are synonymous (which they're not, otherwise the diagnosis of "obsessive-compulsive" would in fact be redundant as well as more work than necessary when "obsessive-obsessive" or "compulsive-compulsive" would do, but then it just looks like you're making fun of people with emotional issues and that's just mean).

Where was I? Oh yes. So, I click on their names and visit their blogs.

And every so often, I'm hooked! I subscribe to feeds on bloglines. I sign up for follow-up emails to blog comments. I keep a blogroll. I know it's a sickness when I feel "behind" on my blog reading. As if it's a homework assignment or something I must do by a certain date. It's become yet another task like responding to emails or . . . okay, I can't think of any other tasks per se, but you get the idea. I also know it's bad when I sign up for a blog's feed on a topic in which I have no interest whatsoever just because I think the blog title is clever. I giggle a little every time I see that one. I don't even remember how I found it.

So there are people on our blog roll that are "online/blogger friends" and I love that! And there are people on our blog roll who we really DO know. Like in real life.

I often wonder, when I look at someone's blog roll or commenters, how they know each other. Is "scrappinmama" related to "madgiraffe?" Is "Jessica" an old roommate of "bytheqts?" How about "addictedtoprozac" and "chipper?" Are they brothers? Enquiring minds!

So I've come up with an idea--a friendship spotlight! Every so often, we're picking someone from our blog roll and spotlighting them. Then you, our faithful readers, will know how we know so-and-so as well as some interesting back stories and gossip. Voila! More sanctioned private information as public knowledge! And we've come full circle. I'm giddy with excitement!

This Post's (I'm not committing to a day-of-the-week or regular schedule as that would be akin to the sickness to which I referred earlier) Spotlight--Bromleys Overseas


Here is a picture of Mark, me, and K hanging out with the Bromleys and Cindy and Kaydawn in Arizona around 2001

Here is a picture of us with our friends The Bromleys taken in August 2005 in Delaware (we stopped to visit them after a week at the beach)

We've always joked that the Bromleys are the kind of friends that are nearly impossible to plan with when you're talking about something 2 or 3 weeks out. But call them on the spur of a moment and ask if they want to parasail that day on an impromptu trip to Chile and they're there!

We met the Bromleys back in Arizona during med school/grad school. Mark and I were Gospel Doctrine team teachers and the Bromleys were enthusiastic participants. When we got released, I specifically remember talking to the Bromleys in the hall afterward and Axel saying (quite loudly), "You got released! That SUCKS!" I liked them right away.

We soon figured out we had something major in common--a love of learning. We were all in graduate school at the same time. Terah and Axel and I were all working on our Master's Degrees and Mark was in medical school. Yay! Nerdy friends!

We started a book club with them and our other good friend, Kaydawn. Kaydawn, Terah, and I wrote hundreds of emails to each other on and off all day long. I specifically remember when I finished reading Rebecca and was going CRAZY wanting to share it with someone. Terah got to the really exciting part and emailed me throughout to tell me of her progress and excitement.

They helped me sneakily throw a surprise party to celebrate Mark's board exams halfway through medical school. The party was awesome--medical-themed everything. Tennis Elbow pasta salad, cracked ribs, Hippocratic Loaf. Latex glove balloons. You name it! Oh, it was so fun.

I remember the first time they showed up at our house and brought along their dog Shylock. I remember feeling like a nervous wreck. There was a dog. In our house. And they didn't seem to think anything of it. A dog! What if it peed on the couch?! Who takes a dog to someone's house like that?! And they didn't think twice about it. The beauty of it is that that's exactly how they are--relaxed and roll with it. So easy to hang out with and talk to and be around. And the funny thing is, I love that dog. I'm not a dog person (in case you couldn't tell), but Shylock is the first dog I've ever loved so much. I love that dog. And if (IF, do you hear me? IF! K and M, if you're reading this, that's a big, fat IF) we ever get a dog, we're getting a Yorkie.

But they're like that. Totally laid back. You're soooooooo comfortable around them and at ease. We would have each other to dinner. When we'd eat at their house, we'd be very careful to not let K get into stuff and possibly break stuff. Axel would always wave his hand and say, "Let her be. She's fine! Seriously, hey Terah! Give her crayons so she can write on the wall." I bet his kids love him.

They celebrated New Years with us and we would laugh until it hurt, tears streaming down our faces. But not just at arranged parties, every time we got together was a blast! We would vent about the idiosyncrasies of Arizona and roll with laughter. Terah and Axel would tell us stories that had us laughing so hard, we could barely breathe. I vaguely remember one about Axel and the phone and his Dad and sheep? And then there's the one about how their friends (who never knocked) walked right into the Bromley's house calling out to them and Axel walked out of the bedroom wearing nothing and holding only a pillow in front of himself and told them that they were, um, in the middle of something. I bet those friends knocked from then on.

Mark, after reading their most recent post, was just laughing and shaking his head and telling me today, "I read the crow post. That's one of the things I liked about having them around--Axel and his odd collection of random knowledge. Snakes, Hindu gods, languages, dialects." I'm trying to remember and they can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Axel speaks, what is it, 16 languages to date?

Terah (who, by the way, is Canadian. I love Canadians) is an awesome person to tell things to. She gets SO excited when you share anything like it's the best thing she's ever heard. You tell her stories and she is GLUED to your every word and her eyes get as big as saucers and she exclaims things like, "Nuh-uh!" and "OMIGOSH!" and "No way!" Way. I totally love talking to people like that. You know, not-dull people. And the Bromleys are anything BUT dull.

By the time we'd met them, they'd already lived in Bosnia as newlyweds. Bosnia! And they'd taken weekend trips to Italy and any number of places in Europe. You know, for the hell of it. Arizona was really a brief stop on their educational journey--long enough to get their degrees, have some fun, visit Mexico, and catch some snakes. Before having kids (beautiful kids, as if there was any question) they went on some cruises, traveled more of the world, and went scuba diving in Belize.

Since then, they've lived briefly in Delaware and then they went on to do what they've always wanted to do, live abroad (again). They LIVE the Amazing Race. They're the kind of people you watch in awe and wish you were more like but recognize that you're totally uptight or chicken comparatively (though you hope desperately that that's not true). They've spent the past several years in the Middle East in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (I wish they'd started blogging sooner, but that post is a bit representative anyway as well as one of the funniest things we've read in a while), one of the richest countries in the world. They had nannies and servants and immersed their family in the culture and language.

They've very recently (so recently that they're still waiting on their stuff, which last I heard was in Calcutta) moved to Nepal. We're so inspired by them. We even recently priced tickets to Nepal out of curiosity thinking how cool it would be to have them show us around such an amazing place. And they'd probably even take us to other countries just because, well, why not? Look at this post and see some of the exotic places they've visited!

So, do it. Check out their blog. You'll learn amazing things. And you'll be inspired, too. Beware, on top of everything else, Terah is totally gorgeous--the kind of girl that would be so easy to hate because of that fact alone, but you just can't, because she's so awesome. The kind of girl who's pre-pregnancy skinny as soon as the baby's out. Oh yeah, and another thing? They're totally in love. I can't say enough how often we say, "I miss the Bromleys!" We're so glad we're friends with such amazing people and glad that, given their own self-standards and sense of adventure, we're not too boring for them to call us friends as well.