charm

 

 

Because you mess with my friends, and I have some REALLY good ones.

They say you can tell a lot about someone by the company they keep so every now and then, I’m gonna give you an inside peek into some of my nearest and dearest.

Starting with my sister from another mister – Marni.  You might recognize her name from my previous post about dating post divorce. She was right in the thick of it. This is nothing new as she’s been right in the thick of it since I was 15. People tell us we look related, sound alike and have similar mannerisms.

There are so many things wrong with this pic but the iridescent white eye shadow is a front runner

There are so many things wrong with this pic but the iridescent white eye shadow is a front runner

Anyone who says “camp friends” cannot become lifelong real friends, has never been to camp.  I met Marni at my favorite camp on the planet, where I spent well over a decade of summers, into my college years and even a short stint in my adult years.  She was the Senior Counselor and I was the CIT.  Our friendship grew, bigger than her hair (which was insanely big, and curly, and complete with a set of giant impressive bangs).  I was an awkward flat-chested teenager (I was a late bloomer) with braces and chicken legs, and she was a busty chick doused from head-to-toe in Victoria’s Secret Rapture and dark lipstick.  I used her ID…to be 18.  And many summer weekends were spent in her Coral Springs apartment she shared with her then boyfriend, mostly because I wasn’t allowed to drive that far (even when I turned 16), so it was easier to camp out there.  Little did I know then, that the girl who worked at Outback Steakhouse, and gave me the inside scoop on how to properly order cheese fries, would evolve into the best friend giving me life lessons I could never live without.

Camp - Scene of the Crime

Camp – Scene of the Crime

Marni and I have seen each other through many hairstyles, body shapes, boyfriends, a couple of ex-husbands, babies and other pivotal points in life.  Our friendship is BRUTALLY honest. Like I’m pretty sure we have divulged more personal information to each other than any physician we have seen in our lives. And we’ve both birthed children, so that says a lot. She’s also totally okay with the fact that I HATE her dog.  Before you judge me, her dog is an asshole, and aside from the baseline wildness, she crossed over to my bad side when she ripped Foofa out of my child’s arms and then ate the screw out of my Tory Burch sandals. Yes I’m holding a grudge against a Golden Retriever.

She never tells me what I want to hear. EVER. She tells it like it is, which is what real friends do.  As a matter of fact, during that whole fiasco of getting myself into the dating game, I had an “episode” about not liking how I looked in any of my clothes. I asked her if something looked tight..did it make me look bigger? And she said, “Ok, I’m just gonna say it….listen…you could NEVER be fat, but you are bigger right now for YOU.  You definitely have more weight on you than I’ve seen.” I didn’t cry. I didn’t get mad. It was what I needed to hear. She was totally right and I lost about 10 lbs in 2 weeks. In return, I tell her what an asshole she sounds like when she imitates her toddler (no, really, it’s so bad that we have a safety word when she’s doing it so I can let her know). THAT’S the kind of friendship we have.

This was post the "come to jesus" talk with Marni that made me get my ass back into gear. Mostly to fit into the Herve Leger for the Bar Mitzvah. Oy!

This was post the “come to jesus” talk with Marni that made me get my ass back into gear. Mostly to fit into the Herve Leger for the Bar Mitzvah. Oy!

We also both love to dance. Funny story – about 10 yrs ago, she gave herself whiplash trying to live in the past and perform an old high school cheerleading routine.  It was so bad, the doctor told her if he didn’t know better, he would have thought she had a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler. We were actually both cheerleaders (shocking, i know), and went to see the premier of the movie Bring it On, back in the day.  After the movie, Deco Drive was outside the theater doors interviewing moviegoers to get the scoop.  TO THIS DAY, Marni accuses me of “stealing her thunder” by hogging the mic, when in reality she froze and wasn’t talking so I saved the day and got us on TV. If I hadn’t, we’d probably be a heaping mess of forgotten film on the cutting room floor. You’re welcome. We were like the throwback version of Sophia Grace and Rosie on Ellen – you know how SG basically does the talking and Rosie is backing her up like a little hype man? That’s what went down.

We also have our own dance.  It’s not patented or anything, but it should be. If we are anywhere where there is music playing, we immediately lock eyes across the room and it happens.  It involves some shimmying, some shaking, and I envision that as cool as WE think we look, we probably look more like Romy and Michelle at their high school reunion.

She does not ever judge me, and I her. Except for when she continues to order food from Here Comes the Sun Roaches, but she purposely hides it from me because she knows it’s a bad choice.  Her dirty (literally) little secret. We just don’t talk about it. We bottle it up and sweep it under the rug like uptight WASPS protecting a deep family secret pretending nothing is amiss.

While our eyebrows and boobs have undergone major transformations over the last decade, our friendship has only grown stronger. She is more like my sister than my friend, and her husband knew from the beginning that it was a package deal. It’s not at all weird for me to hop onto their bed and watch a movie. Now with Jason in the mix we might have to consider organizing ourselves like the 4 grandparents Willy Wonka style to make it work.

SisterWives

SisterWives

She has been my strength when I was broken, my voice of reason when I get crazy, and the best (and cutest) sounding board I could ever have.  I don’t think I laugh harder with anyone and I can envision us as 90-yr old ladies giving each other shit.  I love her like my own blood and she is family in every sense of the word.

SHE is the sole reason why every sentence, every phone call, basically every communication ends with LoveYouBye as one continuous syllable and sometimes I forget where she ends and I begin, liked we’ve morphed into one soul. She’s the chicken to my cheese, the peanut butter to my chocolate, and the Courteney Cox to my Jennifer Aniston (no really, people have cited physical similarities for both). I love the shit out of her and always will.

Hope nobody calls Marni to tell her about this post…Nobody likes a tattle tale. I kid, I kid, , obvs she knows all about it :)