"When Nick Jonas is 26, I'll be 20," my daughter Maeve said with the sun in her eyes in the back seat as we drove to Point Pleasant.
 

"I have experience with diabetes," she said, making her case for why she'd be his ideal bride.
 

I have been blogging in the diabetes community for about two years now. Never have I actually met any of my invisible friends; these physical strangers that know more about me than my extended family does. There's definitely a certain safeness in existing only in words.
 

All that changed on Saturday when I met up with fellow diabetes blogger and parent of a child with diabetes, Shannon and her family. Shannon's 8-year-old son Brendon was diagnosed when he was just a toddler.
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The initial phrases of the Girl Scout song reminding us of how precious friendship is are as true today as they were over forty years ago, when I first learned the short round. And so it was into Manhattan Sunday morning to meet with a dozen or so members of the Diabetes Online Community and "Type 3" friends for brunch at Marseille. The gaggle of us varied in how we embrace digital communications technology to first learn about each other and virtually "meet" -- most of us blog, either independently (e.g., The Butter Compartment, Lemonade Life) or as part of a major diabetes portal (e.g.,, dLife, Diabetes Daily), or within a diabetes-oriented social network (e.g., TuDiabetes); many of us Tweet; a few are just community members who occasionally read blogs or get involved one way or the other. (READ MORE)