Little Bunni Frou Frou

Hello all from my empty house,

That's right, I am officially alone. I am having serious empty nest syndrome today. Why you may ask? Well my best friend Cassie who I frequently mention in this blog graduated this weekend, and she left me this morning:( Nah, she didn't really leave me, but she did go back home so I am here by my lonesome anyways.

As I sit here in my bedroom and think about all the fun and festivities I was so lucky to be apart of this weekend, I can't help but let my mind wander down memory lane. This trip particular journey into the past takes me all the way back to the sixth grade when I was ugly as hell and awkward. Seriously, my yearbook pictures from the 3 years that I attended the ever so prestigious Baker County Middle School are so mind boggling awful. Sometimes when I am feeling especially not cute I say to myself, "At least you don't look like you did in that 7th grade yearbook picture with your hair plastered to your head and the ends of it sticking out everywhere." I had yet to discover a good flat iron and the curling "wand" wouldn't be invented for a few more years. I had no concept of concealer and I had terrible skin. Ugh those certainly were not my glory years as far as looks go.

They were some of the best days in my own personal history though. I had one of the greatest teachers of all times. His name was Mr. Griffis, and he is the reason Cassie and I are friends today. He had a peculiar way of teaching that made stuff really stick with you. I still have the poem that he made us learn memorized to this day. On rainy days, he would turn off the lights and read Edgar Allen Poe poems and short stories to us. He would get really into them too, using different voices and tones appropriate for the suspense and terror only Mr. Poe could deliver in such a spine tingling manner. To help us memorize spelling words or test material, he would ask a question and if we got it wrong he would set us up with a task that inflicted sheer embarrassment on the poor victim. Things that would make some sixth graders cry, like going to the teacher's room down the hall and professing your undying love for a random boy who you may or may not have known in front of their entire class or having to go outside and shout out your crush's name to anyone at P.E. and it didn't matter who you said, it was all equally mortifying.

Mr. Griffis also had a knack for picking on his students and making things really awkward amongst those who did not care for each other. That's how Cassie and I met. You see, Cassie and I didn't really care for each other and she was definitely not anyone who I would call friend. Then one day, Mr. G said something insulting to her and she ran into our other teacher's room via connecting bathroom in tears. Almost like picking people for the Hunger Games, Mr. G pointed to me and demanded I go over there and check on her. I remember protesting and thinking, " Freaking great. What in the world am I supposed to say to her?"

When I went over to Mrs. Giddens' room, she was sitting up against the pale yellow cinder block wall crying with her knees pulled up to her chest. I just sat down beside her and started talking. It's what I am good at so I figured I would start there. She didn't want anything to do with me at first, but after a few minutes I think she got the hint that I wasn't going away so she had no choice. I started talking to her about randomness, and right then and there on that nasty pee smelling carpet, we became the best of friends for over half of my lifetime.

The first time she came over to my house was when I figured out how shitty I was at giving directions to people. You see, I can follow other people's mediocre directions like Sacajawea with Lewis and Clark, but me giving them is like Siri's navigation system on crack and morphine at the same time.

I was trying to explain to her where exactly my house was located. I told her when she got on the dirt road she would pass a wired fence on the left and she would see a cow. I proceeded to tell her to go passed the cow and my house would be on the immediate left. Like seriously, a cow?! I could have just used a normal, non- moving landmark like the church on the right hand side of the road or street names, but instead I chose to use a living creature that may or may not have been in the yard at the time. How she made it to my house that day is a sheer miracle.

Over the years we did everything together. We dated boys who were friends like we were, cheered together, had the same classes, and practically lived together. We were pretty much inseparable from middle school on. She has been with me through all of my ups and downs and I for her's. We have been through some crazy crap together, such as this:

We were both about to be in our first year in high school. It was summer time and I had just started seeing this boy, and Cassie was interested in his friend. I asked my mother if I could have some guy "friends" over that night. Mom had just started taking some meds after she had an episode with seizures that had a side affect of heavy drowsiness. She said she didn't care as long as we behaved and kept quiet. I told her we would be outside swimming and would keep the noise down. She flopped down on the couch and passed out hard.

Being the players we were, we had two sets of guys come over that night. Just kidding, we were good girls who never really did anything bad. It sounds way worse than it really is, the first slew of them were just friends of ours. The boy who was driving was named Justin and he came into my nice little suburban housing division showing off his brand new sound system... It was 9 at night. After my rotten little brother and his friend scared these boys off, my new beau, Cassie's soon to be boyfriend, and a few of their other friends showed up for our little after sunset dip in the pool. My pool had a pink pool light and it was screened in, so it was perfect for nighttime swims.

We had been sitting in the pool for about an hour and a half all talking and playing with a volleyball when there was a knock at the door and the doorbell rang throughout the calm night air. Who on Earth would be coming over this late? I went to answer it and to my sheer horror, it was a female police officer. As I stood their dripping wet with chlorine pool water, she thrust a notice in my hand. My innocence must have given me away because I hadn't a clue what it was for. She explained to me that there was a noise complaint and we had broken a sound ordinance. I didn't understand, we weren't being loud. My mind skeptically wandered to my asshole next door neighbor who didn't really care for our wiener dogs. It was probably him.

About the time I went to close the door, I turned to find my mom rising from the couch in a disgruntled, sleepy haze. Something must have registered in her head because a look of concern crossed her face as she approached to ask the police officer if everything was okay. The officer informed her that we were being too loud and she was being fined 80 bucks to compensate for the disruption of peace. I've never seen someone get so angry so quick. Her face went from concerned to incredible Hulk angry. She demanded an explanation from me and I tried to give her one. She didn't care to stick around and listen. Mom marched outside and started yelling and cussing us all. If there was a disturbance of a sound ordinance before, there was definitely one now as she demanded all of us get out of the pool and the boys leave at once. Poor Ryan (Cassie's soon to be bf) tried to reason with my mom and said, "Ma'am let me explain. We weren't doing anything it must have been someone else driving through the neighborhood. My name is Ry.." My mom didn't let him finish, she cut him off with a, " I don't give a flying fuck who you all are, I want you out of my house right now!" We all scrambled for our towels and dashed out of the pool. I was so mortified, I thought this boy would probably never talk to me again. Too bad he did, he would one day tell me I was too fat for him.

Cassie and I ran back into my bedroom, seeking safe haven from my mother's fury. We went to bed hoping to not be in too much trouble the next morning. We awoke to something totally unexpected, my mom knocking on my door saying, "sweet peas!" in a sing song voice. What the hell?! Why was she being nice? She burst open the door and said, "Who wants to go shopping and have a girls' day?!" Cassie and I looked at each other in disbelief! Was this some sort of trick question. Without skipping a beat, my mom said, "Y'all I had the craziest dream last night. I dreamed that there was loud music and a cop came to the door and got us in trouble for it. Crazy right?" Holy cow, was this for real? Cassie and I could barely keep our faces straight. Had we really just gotten away with this?! We decided what she didn't know wouldn't kill her, and we went along with the whole dream ploy.

We were just about to get up for our shopping date with mom when Tyler walked into the room with a, "I am about to ruin your whole life" look on his face. He looked at mom and said, "That wasn't a dream, a cop really did come last night because their little boyfriends were playing loud music."

Needless to say, we did not go shopping that day.

Cassie always liked to try to get me to do things that I was no good at. Take pageants for example. I did not have any interest in pageants until she forced me to be in one. I had no idea how to do a pageant or what it took to win a big fake crown, but I did it because she was in it and we did everything together. I bought a salmon pink dress dusted in red and gold sparkles and these really spiky gold heels for formal wear. I had been practicing my walk in them all week with Cassie coaching me like a drill sergeant. By the time the pageant came around, I was confident I would strut across that stage like a natural born Miss USA. Oh, I could not have been any wronger. As soon as I stepped out on that stage with my big fake smile, I stepped on my dress and one of the spiky heels of death ripped through the pink fabric. It was stuck! Instead of politely bending down and undoing the shoe from the dress, I proceeded to limp across stage. My gate was completely awkward because the stuck shoe gave me a limited stride. There were murmurs from the crowd and I could hear Cassie's dad wonder aloud if I had in fact broken my foot. I was completely humiliated. As a result, I did not take home a crown and that would be the last pageant I would ever do.

Cassie and I have done it all together. The good, the bad, the extremely ugly, we have been through it all. Honestly, I wouldn't have ever made it through the bad and extremely ugly without her as my best friend. I have so many more stories about our glory days, adventures and misadventures alike. But they all have one thing in common, the two of us. I am not sure what I would do without her, so as I sit here trying to figure out what to do, I am at a loss. Ha, that is a wee bit dramatic, but then, I have always had a flair for the dramatics.

I could not be prouder of my best friend and all that she has accomplished. I would not be where I am without her. Seriously, I would not be at FSU if it hadn't been she who convinced me to apply to my team rival's school. I had no interest in ever attending school here, and if it wasn't for her, I would probably be down at UWF right now. Like I said, she's always getting me into stuff and I am always getting her into trouble.

We are a dynamic duo of massive proportions. Don't get in our way unless you plan on losing. She has my back and I would hurt a lot of people for her. I love you my bunni, you are so awesome!