Colorado Baby!

Meet one of my favorite people in the world:

This is Blumie.  He’s the man responsible for The Zadge’s Big Move from D.C. to Denver.

Well, he and Jennifer Garner.

Really.

See, Blumie and The Zadge worked together in D.C. at their Top Secret Day Job back in the ’90s. (Before anyone was calling the past 10 years the “Aughts.”  The Zadge just doesn’t get the “Aughts” thing.)  Blumie and The Zadge were great friends.  Blumie was The Zadge’s “Work Husband.”  At every job The Zadge has had, she ends up with a great male friend whom she hangs out with all the time, doing more laughing than working, who happens to be a married guy. And NO! – there is no weird flirtation or any of that other yucky stuff.  Just solid friendship.  In fact, The Zadge has ended up being really good friends with all of her Work Husband’s Real Life Wives.

Come to think of it, The Kaiser and I originally met at work, so I guess he is really Husband Number 3 of this perpetually single girl!

Anyway, about six years ago, The Zadge was sitting in her office at her D.C. Top Secret Day Job, when Blumie called her and said, “Dude, guess what?  I’m moving to Denver!!”  Blumie had grown up in Boston and spent his adult life in D.C., so this announcement shocked The Zadge.  The Zadge was immediately depressed because her Work Husband was leaving her.  Without any alimony.

Ok, flash forward several years.  The Zadge is feeling restless, depressed, trapped, stuck in her life in D.C.   She is searching for solutions.  She watches a really bad movie set in Colorado called “Catch and Release” featuring Jennifer Garner.  Despite the dismal plot and acting, the movie sparks an idea in The Zadge’s vodka-stained brain:  Let’s move to Colorado!

Mind you, other than college and grad school, since she was 7 years old The Zadge had lived nowhere other than D.C.  And she only knew two people in Denver and had been there once in her entire life.  But Blumie kept calling The Zadge and saying, “Dude, you wouldn’t believe how great life is here.”

So, based only on a lukewarm performance by Jennifer Gardner and Blumie’s great reviews, The Zadge took a deep breath and gave up her life of 37 years in the Nation’s Capitol and just freakin’ headed west.

And she is so glad that she did.

Today she lunched with Blumie at Elways, a “power restaurant” in Denver owned by that guy John.  Blumie has been traveling a ton and we hadn’t caught up in a long time.  So I thanked him for giving me the balls to make the move.

And we both asked each other, “Do you think you’ll go back?”  We both answered, “No way!”  And then Blumie kindly picked up the tab and we left to go back to work.

As we hugged goodbye, I looked down and realized that on this “casual Friday,” we were both sporting cowboy boots.  I pointed to our feet and said, “Dude! Look!”

And he said, “Dude!! Colorado Baby!”

Yes, that’s right.  Colorado Baby!!!

P.S. Who would have thought that there was ANYONE who could make Tiger Woods look good?  And then there was John Edwards.