Wind is to trash day what the UPS person is to Stella. All around our neighborhood, recycling bins have been upended and lawns are strewn with newspapers and cans and plastic containers. Luckily, Duke and I foresaw such a problem and weighted down our recycling with empty high quality beer bottles. Who's laughing now? Okay, well, we were laughing then, too.

I just read a woman's account with the struggle that is making mommy friends. It did indeed ring true and clear. Perhaps if you're a work-outside-the-home mommy, the situation isn't so dire. You still have that whole connection to the adult world. But for stay-at-home moms, friends are the balm to your sanity.

I had a lot of things going against me in this arena. I am an introvert by nature. I am incapable of making small talk. I did not have work force friends, as I have been in college since we moved here from Boston. I did not have college friends because I went to college with kids who were 10 years younger than I. They were getting busted in the dorm for smoking the pot. I was clipping coupons and making dinner. And then when I was a became a mom, I realized I didn't know any other moms that lived in the same state as I.

And trying to befriend like-minded moms was akin to trying to get a date with the most popular girl in school. If there was a mom who had a kid roughly your kid's age, wasn't pregnant, stayed at home full-time, was even remotely friendly and/or interesting, they had been snatched up long ago. Just when you would think you were making some headway and trying to get up the nerve to ask her out, her betrothed would appear and the two would push their strollers into the sunset, laughing and drinking water from eco-friendly containers and feeding their kids broccoli--all the very things that you had leaped ahead and envisioned doing with your brand-new best friend while you were introducing yourself. Sigh.

When Mort had just turned three, I was engaging in chitchat at the library with a pair of cute moms. I had no hope for them to be my friends. They were already a unit. One had rhinestones on her flip flops. The other had great hair. They had adorable, funny kids. I knew at any moment they would leave for lunch together.

Instead, it was the beginning of my venture into the wonderful world of girlfriends. For all these charming women that I met changed and enriched my life beyond anything I had known to even dream. We got together for the kids and stayed for the moms. They are a group straight out of a mommy lit novel, straight out of a chick flick. We watch each others' kids and we go out for dinner without them, we bolster and support and laugh and vacation and drink wine and eat Thai and see movies and get ice cream. When I am out of town, they invite Duke and Mort on their excursions. When my life hits a bump or I worry about Mort, they close ranks around me.We are safe within that circle. When we are together, everyone's child is our own.

So in reading that mother's article, I both felt terrible for her in her plight, because it is a real one and I felt grateful, so very grateful that I know what life is within your family of friends.