Cozy People

I love the fall outfit above.  It’s looks very cozy.  This is the time of year that I begin to look forward to warm and soft garments to wrap myself in.  But nothing is a cozy as a cozy person. 

A cozy person is the friend who, when you mention that you adore eggrolls, tells you that you must find a source for wholesale eggrolls so that you can freeze them and have them all the time.  And this is said without a whit of compunction for either cholesterol or freezer space.  Cozy people want you to have pleasure and comfort and think of ways that you can have it all the time with abandon.  And I’ve discovered what drives cozy people is pure love.  They simply love us and want us to have as much of what we love as possible whether it’s ice cream, maximum lollygagging in Lazy-Boys, or eggrolls.

I had an aunt who was a cozy person.  As soon as we sat down on her comfortable and ridiculously-oversized circular couch in her teeny tiny apartment, she would ask benignly, “Does anybody want some M & M’s???”  Of course the large crystal bowl of M & M’s was right under our noses on the coffee table already.  She shirked all responsibility to our mother and proffered copious amounts of M & M’s – as much as our fists could stuff in our mouths – along with endless Dixie cups of “tonic” (soda pop to non-Bostonians) – tonic also being banned at our house.  My Auntie Mame was a legendary cozy person.

But a cozy person doesn’t just offer forbidden foods – they also create an atmosphere of cheer and contentment.  They put people first;  always and forever.  Cozy people drop everything when someone is in need.  It doesn’t matter if dinner is boiling over on the stove or a meeting is about to start and they’re not dressed yet – they pause, look you straight in the eye, draw a circle of coziness about you and start helping.  They make you feel good.  And safe…

I knew a cozy person who went to the 24 hour pharmacy to get my sick baby’s medicine when I couldn’t leave the house.  It was midnight.  And snowing.  This cozy person did it without a bit of resentment and wouldn’t let me thank her.  She is also the cozy person who sent her cozy husband out into the night to check my furnace when it wouldn’t start one frigid day after the repairman didn’t show up.  Cozy people come in pairs sometimes.

I had a friend who had cozy parents and when I picked her up to go out dancing, I found all I wanted to do was stay indoors with her mother and father and snuggle into their overly-cushioned sofa and watch Love Boat with them and thumb through all their back issues of Ladies Home Journal and Family Circle.  And I wanted to do this with a mug of cocoa in their fancy but decoratively-challenged built-in cup holders too.

But back to food… A favorite cozy friend of mine makes an amazing grilled cheese sandwich.  On the night I lost my job she came over with her electric griddle, bread and cheese and made a feast with her sandwich skills.  Then this cozy person took my wet laundry and hung it to dry.  I never visited her house without leaving stuffed to the gills with grilled cheese, comfort and solace. That’s what makes cozy people so special.  For them, it’s all about caring.  And love…

Life without cozy people in it would be very sad indeed.  Do you have any cozy people in your life?

Special Note:  This post is dedicated to Ed, my egg-roll pimp and King of Cozy.