Friendship

Kathy Hee looked up the telephone number, and Terry Cobb called the taxi. Each packed her own bag of goodies for bingo. Each brought a stuffed Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer as a good-luck charm. Terry is color-blind, so Kathy, as usual, picked out their clothes, always identical. "We look like Bobbsey Twins," Terry said. On this day last week, Kathy chose green T-shirts with "BINGO!!" on the front. Terry, 53, and Kathy, 54, met in the laundry room at Elwyn Institute, a Delaware County school for people with disabilities.

Curtain's up this week as third and fourth graders from HMS School for Children With Cerebral Palsy and from Germantown Friends School stage their 12th annual musical. It will happen again tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. at Taulane Auditorium at HMS.

A painting plays a crucial role in Art, but Yasmina Reza's Tony Award-winning comedy isn't about art. Its concern is male friendship, and the female playwright makes some astute observations about it in this entertaining production at the Playhouse Theatre. For one: If you think a friend might not like something you have just purchased, don't press him for an honest opinion. Serge, one of the play's trio of friends, makes that mistake at the outset. He has paid quite a lot of money for a painting he admires, and asks his longtime pal Marc, played by Judd Hirsch, the star of this touring production, what he thinks of it. Marc studies the minimalist work - an all-white background supposedly marked with some white diagonal lines - and pronounces it a piece of excrement, though, plain-speaking man that he is, he uses a blunter term.

WASHINGTON - When Republican Rand Paul was elected to the Senate in November, he received a congratulatory call from an unexpected source: U.S. Sen. Al Franken. That 30-minute phone call - the only one Paul received from a Democrat after Election Day - has sparked an unlikely friendship between a Kentucky tea party conservative and an unapologetic Minnesota liberal. Franken attended Paul's party after he was sworn in as a senator, and Paul asked Franken to be his Democratic Senate mentor.

From the Los Angeles Dodgers' clubhouse, to a private stairway near the Diamond Club entrance in Shea Stadium, to the executive offices on the second floor, Darryl Strawberry made the longest diplomatic journey of his career yesterday. Strawberry walked into Frank Cashen's office at 5 p.m. and finally restored his friendship with the New York Mets' general manager. "It was a very, very positive meeting," Strawberry said after the 10- minute session. After spending much of the winter criticizing the Mets for "running me out of town," Strawberry was far more conciliatory toward Cashen, who, he said, "has really liked me, deep down, all along.

Never underestimate the role of friendship, both personal and political, when crunch time arrives. Take the case of the two amigos - John Street and Thacher Longstreth. Friendship, rather than issues, explains why moderate Republican Longstreth changed his mind on the police advisory board bill. Longstreth's switch gave supporters the 12th vote they needed to override Mayor Rendell's veto. When Council President Street, Longstreth's personal friend and political ally, asked him to switch, the Chestnut Hill Quaker didn't fight.

Q: In 1978, I shared a platonic beer with a young woman whom I'll call "J. " Our friendship was kind of brother-and-sister. Recently, we ran into one another at a Rod Stewart concert. This platonic relationship has gotten very, very close to the next level and it feels so weird on both ends. Do we proceed to enter into a place where there is no turning back or do we keep our incredible platonic friendship? P.S. Her lips are softer than any lips I've ever kissed. Steve: Platonic?

Reminiscent of those classic three-girls-three romantic comedies such as How to Marry a Millionaire, the charming Punks is a four-guys-four funfest about a quartet of WeHo (West Hollywood) friends who sometimes cruise for sex when they'd really rather look for love. There's the inhibited romantic, Marcus (Seth Gilliam); the exhibitionist bed-hopper, Hilton (Dwight Ewell); the party boy, Dante (Renaly Santiago); and the transvestite and den mother, Crystal (Jazzmun); three brothers and a Hispanic whose motto would seem to be "sisterhood is powerful.

The wisdom among surfers is that "life's a beach, then you die. " For all impractical purposes, this is the theme of Beaches, a seriously glib and irresistibly enjoyable portrait of female friendship that offers this soothing moral: Men may come and go, but girlfriends are forever. Let's put it this way: Beaches rates two stars and four hankies. There are times when you would just rather have a good cry than see a good movie, and this is one of them. Beaches (somehow they didn't get the name exactly right)

AT THIS time of year, our windows open up to sweet scents of spring - and the headache-inducing annoyance of the neighborhood nuisance barker. Is this dog yours? The owners of problem barkers seem to develop an ability to ignore the noise that has their neighbors thinking of legal action - or worse. But a dog who's barking night and day isn't having any more fun than the neighbors are, and you owe it to both your pet and those who can hear him to fix this problem. The first step is to figure out why your dog is sounding off so much.

Question: I have a longtime friend whom I once considered a "best friend. " We connect at the heart and have relied on each other a lot over the years. Several years back, she went through a tough professional transition and completely cut me off. Not because she was angry with me, but because she needed to move through it alone. I was devastated that she would not return my calls, respond to my e-mails, accept my invitations. That went on for nearly two years. Ultimately, we worked it out, and all was well for a few years.

Five girls met as freshmen at their first cross-country practice at Mount St. Joseph Academy in Flourtown in 2003. They were all from different towns, new to the school and nervous, just looking to fit in. What happened to them has happened many times in many places. A bond was formed, friendships that may last a lifetime. "Back in our high school days, we bonded over Coach [Karen] Orr's merciless workouts and on long runs at Valley Green," said Genevieve O'Mara, now of Boston, "and that bond has remained strong ever since!"

Question: The last few times I've been out with my buddy and his wife, she's made some really derogatory remarks to him, if not outright screamed at him. He seems really cowed by her, like he's just trying to placate her so she'll stop. He hardly talks now. I worry about him (she wasn't like this when they were dating or early in their marriage), and I'm wary of burning bridges. I know him. If I even hint that she's abusing him, he'll get angry. I'm 99 percent certain he doesn't think he's being abused.

Adapted from a recent online discussion. Question: I (female) have a very good friend (male). He's great and we enjoy each other's company. I do know, through conversations with him, that he's pretty much a jerk to women he dates/sleeps with, but our friendship doesn't revolve around this, so I don't really care. I have another friend (female) who was interested in him. I told her that while he's a good friend I think he'd be a lousy boyfriend, and gave examples. She claimed he'd be different with her and I stayed out of it. Six months later, he was a jerk to her too, and she's mad at me, not him, for not stopping her, and insists I can no longer be friends with him. How do I deal with this?

Meg Hoechlin is an average teenager. She plays several sports, is involved in her school, and likes to hang out with friends. There's just one thing. Hoechlin is not able to hang out with a lot of her friends in person because she has never met them outside of a computer monitor. Many of her friends live in far-flung places across the country. And she met them through social media. "Some of the people I trust most in the world are Internet friends, simply because they are judgment-free," said Hoechlin, a 17-year-old senior.

Two women, driven by desperation into friendship. In the right hands, this plot forms the basis for exciting buddy comedies ( Thelma & Louise ) or emotionally engaging period pieces ( Enchanted April , Steel Magnolias ). In Michael Whistler's heavy-handed The Prescott Method: Easy Steps to Perfect Bread Baking, Every Time , it inspires little but a desire to check one's watch. This 75-minute time-waster, now receiving its world premiere at the Walnut Street Theatre's Independence Studio on 3, follows a few months in the lives of town pariah Veronica (Madi Distefano)

From Jenny to The Butterfly's Daughter , the book comes after the news of the day: Joan's surgery on Friday; Lisa's first grandchild; and, yes, Jane, you can get Thomas' English muffins at Wegmans. At meetings of the Valley Forge Mountain Book Club, the hot new mystery or literary classic isn't incidental, but it shares nearly equal time with the sisterly chitchat of friends. That's the way it's been for decades with this group of women, this year celebrating the 40th anniversary of a book club whose rules once included a 25-cent fine for tardy members.

Maybe Mouphtaou Yarou and Daniel Ochefu get along well because they play basketball for Villanova, or because they have backgrounds in soccer. Or maybe it's because Ochefu's mother gives him African food for Yarou. "My mom makes this egusi soup," Ochefu said. "It's got spinach and different types of meats in it. That's really helped [our relationship]. That wasn't too bad. " "I really like it," Yarou said. Whatever it is that has drawn together Yarou, the 6-foot-10 senior who came to the United States in 2007 from Benin in West Africa, and Ochefu, the 6-11 freshman who returned to his father's native Nigeria to live for 31/2 years before starting high school at the Westtown School, they enjoy their time on and off the court.

Adapted from a recent online discussion. Question: My friend's husband is obnoxious and offensive, and I'm out of serenity. I just want to leave now, but our lives are entangled. I feel like a heel waiting out mutual obligations to make my exit, but I don't see any good in telling them what's going on. My friend will just see one more person denigrating her husband. She seems happy and she's repeatedly assured me she's happy with him. Her husband generally gets defensive and is unable to admit fault.