A Very Merry Unbirthday

When I first heard that Librarian Girl was looking for someone to blogsit while she went to visit her folks, I thought “Ooooo! Ooooo! Pick Me!” And LG, who lovingly tries to support me in all I do, DID pick me. All of the sudden, I went from feeling like I chose the lucky suitcase on Deal or No Deal to feeling like Jack Skellington did when he realized how badly he had fusked up Christmas. For the past year and a half, LG has selflessly blogged her way into your hearts by making you laugh, cry, and occasionally utter the phrase “What the ?!?!?”. So how could I hope to fill her exquisitely chosen footwear even for a day?

And then it hit me. After all the tributes she has paid to her near and dear with Birthday Posts, no one has ever written one about her. So, since it is not quite the season for LG’s actual birthdayness, I present to you an Unbirthday Post to assure you all that LG is, in fact, as surprising and wonderful and, let’s face it, nutty as she seems.

We shall start back in the late 1990’s when LG and I met at the aforementioned glamorous canoe rental facility. According to LG, there was a moment when she knew we would become friends and it involved me getting so frustrated with that stupid job that I grabbed on to some paddles leaning against the counter, turned my eyes upward, and said the words “Beam me up Scotty”. If references to Star Trek can’t bring two people together, what can really?

In dating terms, our friendship became serious fairly quickly after that and we soon relied on each other for important things like distracting each other from ridiculously impossible math homework and paper writing to embarking on a quest to find the best donut shop in town. And let me tell you, no one can elaborate on the finer points of a donut better than LG. Forget about wine with all of its bouquets and noses and legs, the culinary world of glaze, sprinkles, and cake-like texture is where it’s at!

And so, we come to the time when I (being Biology Girl) decided to pack my bags and head to California a la The Clampetts to pursue more edumacation in the name of everyone’s favorite sea creature – the barnacle. (Okay, let’s be honest here, technically Nordic Boy did the packing and there’s no way a family of four could have fit in my car with all of the crap I had in there.) But in the way that no one but Librarian Girl can, she managed to give me a send-off worthy of one of our favorite TV shows leaving the air.

Here are the highlights:

1. As a going away gift, Librarian Girl gave me MULTIPLE binders with years worth of all of our emails to each other in chronological order. These tell my history better than anything I could try to write and I’d guard them with my life if I had to.

2. On my last night in town, I settled into LG’s guest room and started to mist up thinking of all I was leaving behind when suddenly a chorus of Whitney Houston’s “I will always love yooooouuuuu” burst across the hall sung by none other than LG and Nordic Boy.

3. During the long drive back to Cali, LG made sure to keep us stocked in Smart Puffs, snacky cakes, and an endless supply of tunes. And if that weren’t enough, she didn’t complain one bit about the fact that every time she got back in the car I had to literally pack her in amidst the houseplants, random pairs of socks, and my answering machine that tended to fly out when she opened her door.

4. Most importantly, during this time of trial, tribulation, and dealing with a gas station attendant who bore an unsettling resemblance to Charles Manson, LG pulled out all the stops to be silly and keep me laughing when part of me wanted to do anything but that. The night before we got to our final destination, she got us a spot in a swanky boutique hotel, took me out to dinner, and assured me that everything was going to be okay.

And, as usual, she was right.

Now, here I am almost five years after that historic trip, and I don’t think LG and I could be closer even if we lived right next door to each other. So thanks Librarian Girl for the love, friendship, and urgent phone calls about the latest example of why wearing socks with sandals really is a bad idea. I don’t know what I would ever do without you and, quite frankly, I have no intention of finding out.

Gotta Go. Bye.
Biology Girl