Udon Noodle Salad With Spicy, Peanut Lime Dressing

There are some things you learn about your partner, only when traveling together. For instance, what each other likes to pack for a weekend away.

“Why are there bicycle shorts in here?”

“Why are you snooping in my luggage?” I asked.

“I needed toothpaste.”

“Here,” I said, as I pulled out a tube.

Roo took the toothpaste from my hand, “I still don’t understand why you need bicycle shorts for a wedding.”

“Ok!” I said, turning my back to Roo and shoving the shorts further down the bag, “Ok, you got me….I wear them under my dress.”

“Why?”

“Because Roo, some girls’ thighs rub together and god forbid it’s 100 out and you have sweaty thighs rubbing together. It’s the worst.”

“Oh. Isn’t it supposed to be 97 this weekend?”

“I know.“

Sometimes you discover that your partner cannot be trusted to drink any fluids while traveling. At all.

“I need to pee.”

“We just stopped ten minutes ago. There is no way you have to go right now.”

“It was the iced coffee.”

“That you drank two hours ago?”

“Yes.”

“Lys, we can’t stop. We have five more hours of driving. If we keep stopping every ten minutes we’ll never get there.”

I crossed my legs, “I read there’s a service area in ten miles.”

“We are not stopping.”

“This is ridiculous!” I said, uncrossing and recrossing my legs again.

“Are you really saying that by not stopping at a rest area, because we just stopped at one ten minutes ago, is ridiculous?”

“I really need to pee.”

And sometimes, you learn that your partner does not have the same opinion as for what counts as snacks for a road trip.

“So what did you bring for food?”

“I packed a super yummy udon noodle salad.”

“Wait, what?”

“Don’t worry. I packed real forks.”

“How am I supposed to eat that? While driving.“

“I see you drive with one hand all the time!” I replied, taking the tupperware container out of the cooler.

“It’s a noodle salad. A salad you once described as super slurpy.”

“That’s what makes it so good!”

“Lys, how am I supposed to eat a super slurpy noodle salad while driving?”

I stopped shaking the ziploc bag filled with dressing and looked at Roo, “More for me I guess.”

“Why do I feel like this was your plan all along?”

Vegetable Stir Fry with Quinoa

I’m a lazy friend. Not horrible, just lazy.

I keep secrets. I give the best hostess gifts. And I can make you laugh.

Getting me to actually show up at your house?

Terrible. As in 99% unlikely. Which is why Roo was surprised to hear where I was going on Friday.

“You’re actually driving to Gardner. Gardner, Massachusetts?”

“Yes. Past Framingham, near Leominster.”

“But it’s Friday,” Roo said, sitting down on the couch and putting up his feet, “We get tired on Fridays.” *

I shot Roo a look as I felt for my keys in my purse, “Of course we get tired on Fridays! But I still need to go. I haven’t seen AA in over a year.”

“You can’t reschedule?”

“You are the worst!” I said, throwing a pillow at Roo. “Besides, JL is going to be there and I haven’t seen her in ages either.”

AA and JL are dear friends. And powerhouses.

They are the women seen tearing through a Warrior Dash, just because they got up early that morning and thought, “You know what would go well with this cup of coffee? Mud.”

Photos from JL

I am not built like them.

Photo from AA

I’m deathly afraid of heights, whine when I get a blister on my toe, and despite my love of power yoga, I hate sweating.

But the three of us love to laugh, drink wine and share the most humiliating stories. It’s what we do.

I love it.

Conversation ranged from “how girls don’t fart,” followed by “then I woke myself up by farting. On my boyfriend.” to “do they not see me? why am I always sat on? I’m a person!” that night. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. And on my drive home I was inspired.

AA recently became a home owner and JL has two children. They both train for whatever endurance event is coming up while living very busy lives.

When they get home they need a quick, easy meal that can refuel them while satisfying the taste buds of little ones and in AA’s case, her big guy.

Stir fry was the first thing that came to mind. It’s a one pot meal (especially if you have leftover cooked quinoa) and can be thrown together less than 30 minutes.

Buckwheat (Soba) Noodle Salad with Chili Lime Dressing

“Did you ever have rules when you were first dating someone?”

“No. No, I don’t think so.”

“Really? Because I feel like all girls have rules. Especially when we’re younger, in our 20s.”

“Like what?”

I paused, wondering if I should tell Roo all the ridiculous ‘rules’ my friends and I had while in undergrad. “Well…” I decided to start off slow, “Never display any sort of bodily function in front of them, like burp or fart.”

“Right, because girls don’t poop.”

“Yes.  And we also don’t cry while looking in the mirror.”

Roo nodded as he scooped up a piece of broccoli with his fork.

“Also, don’t laugh so hard that you snort or God forbid fart.”

“Didn’t you once -”

“No.”

“When we were walking back from Thai Red Pepper -”

I grabbed a napkin to blot my mouth, “No. That never happened.”

Roo stifled a laugh, “Ok, what else?”

“Don’t sleep with someone before the third date,” I replied, half focused on getting a few sunflower seeds onto the tines of my fork, “And if you do sleep with that person -”

“After the third date of course.”

I smiled, “Yes.  If you sleep with that person you must wake up before they do so you can freshen up.”

“Like get rid of swamp mouth?”

“And that oily mess you call your face, yes.”

“Well, what about dinner? You went from talking to that person to sleeping with them. Makes me think you were a bit -”

“Hey! Hey now. Alright, dinner. Well, never order noodles because no one wants to see you slurp and sputter sauce everywhere.”

Roo raised an eyebrow.

“I know, I know. They were ridiculous.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“What?”

“That last bite you took of soba. I think you got some dressing on your shirt.”

I glanced down to see a giant stain on my right breast.  It looked like I was lactating.  “Great. See? This is why we have rules.”