Rachel...The First Woman Cade Fell In Love With....

A few weeks ago, I asked for blog topics.   Someone said "I would like to know more about the people in your life that you love.  Tell us about some of your friends.  Why are they important to you?  Why do they love you?  You seem to attract fascinating, interesting people-so write about them."

I do have an amazing,  eclectic, normal,  bizarre group of friends whom I love very much.  I carry pieces of each of them with me. Some I have met....some I have not.   It seemed only natural to begin with one that you are probably already familiar with.   Rachel was my first friend in Plainview.  She was the one that taught me how to set up an email account.  Because of her, I blogged.   I got one comment.....yep, it was Rach.  She blogs HERE.  She is the one that told me to get a debit card and to pay my bills online.   Cade fell in love with her at the age of 3. She was tall and wore ties and he would have gone home with her in a heartbeat....but she could not of fed him. She has gone to the kid's school events and supported them even though she is allergic to small children.   Rachel taught me that it was perfectly alright and expected to think outside of the box.  She STILL gets me to think outside of the box.  She has had the biggest impact on me in developing into who I am today. (that is a good thing)  I will forever be grateful.  I have MAYBE hugged her less than 5 times in my whole life.  Despite that, she knows how I feel about her and I know how she feels about me.  She has thrown things at me.  She has seen me at my worst.    I have sat across the table from her more times than I remember.  I have traveled with her.....I have no problem slogging though a cemetery with her and she has no problems schleping  though a craft store with me.  We click.   Rachel is someone that I could live in a commune with.  Ya know, if we had our own rooms and no one was allowed to touch other people's stuff or talk before 8am and they fed us.

This, is my Rachel......

1. What is your first memory of me?   It was your hair.  Our tight little group at work knew you were there for an interview.  Somebody managed a glimpse of you.  They reported back that you had a tail.  Obviously that made you a partier.   We were all bummed.  We didn’t need that kind of a person!  You’d never fit in!  We wouldn’t like you.  And we sure hoped there were some other, more suitable candidates still to come.  Book covers never lie, right?  

Me:  OMG!  I did not know that!  The same thing happened to me when I moved to Clarendon my freshman year and was in basketball.  They all thought I was their competition.  They got over that about 3 minutes into the first practice.  

My first memory of you is me wondering around out in the big middle and you looking at me and pointing to something above my head.  The bathroom sign.  lol  You knew what I needed and we did not even have to speak.  That holds true today.

2. Tell me all about your job and why you love/hate it?   I’ve been a probation officer since the day after college graduation.  I’ve never considered a change because the job provides some of the most honest, gritty, and hilarious experiences anyone could possibly ask for.  I can’t imagine anything that could be better for someone who just plain loves humanity in all its permutations.  Now I’m the boss of my own self, which is great.  I have tons of freedom.  But the administrative side of things is not my strong suit.  I’m much more interested in the people, rather than the paperwork.  

Me:  Remember when everything was done by hand?!?!?   I did not even have a computer on my desk when I started.  It's a shame that the general public will not know about chlamydia of the knee, peace treaties and why women cannot have convulsions.  

  

3. Who is your hero and why?   Ohhhhhhh, hell.  So hard to choose.  Lots and lots of heroes.  Most of them fictional, I think.  Today my hero is Dorothy Parker.  I love her attitude and her smart mouth.  And I cannot tell you how badly I’m craving time spent at an Algonquin round table of my own, full of my mouthy friends. And of COURSE you are right there next to me at the table.  Because we are effin’ AWESOME together at that sort of thing.  

Me:  I had to look up Algonquin.  My mouthiness I partially attribute to you.  We are great together like that.  Like Martin and Lewis or Bert and Ernie.  That is why I wanted us to do the amazing race together.  Seriously, you and I are good at knowing what our own strengths and the other's strengths are and acting accordingly.  That is why I wanted us to try out for the amazing race together.  That and I knew you would not trade me off to another team or leave me behind.  But, you had to stay home and take care of cancer boy.  aahheemm  look who is still here.

4. Which is your favorite tat and why?  I don’t have a particular favorite, which is why I don’t have one.  But I love classic tattoo art.  I toyed with the idea of becoming a tattoo artist.  But then I realized that I’d have to, you know, touch people.  Eew.  No.  But I still love the art!

Me:   I would love to be a massage therapist but I would be really really picky. I could not massage someone that was really hairy.    I would also be great at cleaning people's homes and organizing but I would not clean their bathrooms.  Not sure how that applies to this question but I felt sure that you wanted to know those things.   

5. If you could host a dinner party and invite 5 women, (alive, dead or fictional) who would you invite?   I have good friends in different compartments of my life.  I’d like to gather them all together around a table so you could all get to see and hear each other.  You’re all so different, and you bring out different things in me.  But you’ve all got a lot in common.  I’d like the planets to align, so to speak, and see how everyone would fit with each other.  

Me:  That would be so cool.  You have a wide variety of friends from all walks.  I love that about you.  It is not an outside packaging thing for you.  You add to everyone you let close.  

6. Your worst habit?  Not finishing stu...

Me:  ~snorts~  so you....

7. What do you collect?  Gargoyles.  Skulls.  Maybe yard art.  

Me:  Maybe yard art?  How does one maybe collect yard art?   One of the big things that I miss about you is your office.  Your people had to be terrified/perplexed/clueless about your office.  I loved it.  

8. Favorite saying and why?  I/you/they took a button and sewed a vest to it.  I learned that saying from Perry Mason books way back when.  It pretty much describes what I do.  I love to pick up a tidbit, a small detail and weave an entire story around it.  So much fun.  

Me:  I had never heard that saying before you.  I love it but never ever remember to use it.  lol

9. Scrambled eggs or over easy? What do you eat on them?  Both.  Usually scrambled because it’s harder to get good over easy eggs.  I like my over-easies to have those crispy buttery edges that are juuuuuust starting to brown.  I don’t eat eggs without some sort of red paint on them, preferably good salsa.  Barring that, tabasco.  In a pinch, ketchup.  I don’t like eggs by themselves.  They need meat and red paint.  Then I love them.

Me:  LOL red paint.  I am a ketchup girl.  

10. If you could put a tat on me, what would it be and why? Where?   A single star, placed where you could easily see it.  To remind you that you are enough all by yourself.  You are bright and shiny and perfect all on your own.  Combined with other stars, you can light up the universe.  But with or without them, you will shine on and no amount of darkness could smother your light.

Me:  Well hell, my eyes got sweaty.  I love that so much.  I love that and it just might be my next tattoo. Maybe on my right wrist.   I hate you so much.  ;) 






All pics courtesy of Rachel herself.   Which is a nice was to say I stole them.