I have so much to say, and I don't know where to begin.

This past weekend has been one of the best weekends of my life. It is one that I know will stand out in my memory, for a very long time, and for dozens of reasons.

For four in particular.

I'm going to make the story of the trial competition a separate deal. It will be easier that way, for me to give you a piece of writing that focuses only on that, as opposed to trying to write one big weekend story, switching back and forth between my schizophrenic weekend as both Lawyer Elizabeth and Regular Elizabeth.

In here, over a span of a few days, will be the Regular Elizabeth story.

I knew that my trial competition was in Philadelphia. I also knew that three-fourths of my favorite journal sisters lived in the Philadelphia area, and that the other one-fourth lived only a couple of hours away.

What I did not know is how they would react to my invitation to get up really early on a Saturday morning, and travel into the city to be in a courthouse by 9:00.

On the phone on Friday night, they promised me they would. I gave them an out, told them that if they stayed up too late, or slept in too late, or just didn't feel like it when they woke up, it was perfectly understandable.

Had they not shown up, I would have understood, but would have felt that it was par for the course as far as most of my friends go. I'm used to having my offers rejected.

They will have to tell you where I was when they got to the courtroom. I was a little nervous that morning, even though I had already tried the case once in the competition. All I remember is turning around and seeing them, all four of them plus one husband thrown in for good measure, sitting on the back bench, imaginary pom-poms in hand, threatening to do the wave whenever my objections were sustained.

Although I would have been slightly disappointed had they not shown up, I was not expecting how excited it made me that they had made it. How moved I was that these five people, who I had met only once before, had given up a Saturday morning because I had asked them to.

I don't know how much longer it will take for this kind of gesture on their part to stop surprising me. I don't want it to stop surprising me. I don't want to forget how lucky I am to have found them.

"And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed." --- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, "On Friendship"