Meet Jennifarter

Today's blog is about my best friend Jennifer. Whom we call Jennifarter, for two reason. The best one is that she LOVES fart jokes. Loves them. You can usually find some good ones on her blog Jennifarter's Blogspot. The second reason is because that is the mixture of her first and last name. My friend Jennifer is amazing. When I asked if I could blog about her she said "Lol OF COURSE YOU CAN BLOG BOUT ME! good bad ugly, it don't matter."

I met Jennifer back in July of 2001, I was just out of high school, I had just started my first job, in hell as it turned out. She was on vacation my first week there, and the people there tried to describe her to me, and in my mind, I had pictured someone older. She was only about 21 or 22. I was painfully shy back then. It took me months before I started to talk to people without them talking to me first. By the end of the year, Jennifer and I were work friends, and somehow we had each others phone numbers, and proceeded to get in trouble at work for texting each other. "We're not in high school girls..". We still texted, apparently just a lot more carefully! Then on one fateful day, Jennifer invited me to go with her to her brothers (17th I think) birthday party. At the skating rink (where he worked, don't worry) and I will tell you I was nervous. I have a fear of meeting new people and them not liking me. So I rode out with her to her house, they lived in a barn. (I kinda miss the barn..) And her parents and brother were just, amazing. Its so rare that you meet new people who immediately put you at ease just by their character, accept you for who you are and make you feel right at home. This family did all of that.

Of course I don't have time to recall EVERY AWESOME time that Jennifer and I have had together, I'm going to highlight just a few today, so everyone can see how freaking cool this chick is.

She let me drag her to the Buzz Oven show in Grand Prairie Texas one weekend, because my most favorite band, Bowling For Soup, was headlining. So we packed up my car, and headed down. Following our Mapquest directions VERY CLOSELY. Yet, somehow we ended up in Mesquite Texas. The whole opposite side of Dallas we should have been. And I'm not gonna lie, it was scary. So we bought a map, called her dad, and somehow managed to make it to the side we needed to be on. And we drove through Grand Prairie for what seemed like forever, looking for a place to stay. Something name-brand, not "The Pink Flamingo Inn", and nothing that said "hourly rates". Finally, and the very end of the city, we found it. It was as if the angels had shown their light on that beautiful building: The Howard Johnson. We got our room, got something to eat, and then went to bed, we had a big day of rocking out ahead of us. The next morning, we awoke, got ready and set out to find the Bronco Bowl. I swear it was already 100 degrees outside before noon. We ate some breakfast, and waiting in line. And waited in line. And waited in line. After we finally got into the show, we learned that there were about 20 bands going on before my beloved BFS. So we did was normal girls do, we headed back to the HJ, and took a nap. And then way later in the afternoon we headed back and got in to see some really good bands. The Rocket Summer anyone?!. He was too cute! And after all that, we went back to sleep, and made our way home. It was a great time, and we got some good souvenirs out it. I still wear the tshirt.

Next up, Labor Day Slumber Camp. This was a lovely three day weekend that we spent "camping" in my Gramma's motor home, parked in the driveway outside of her house. We had scary movies, ice cream, drinks, and good times. As far as drinks, my Gramma made us Peach Fizzes, which is Pink Lemonade, Canned Peaches, Vodka and Ice, blended together. Its so delicious. The first batch was super good, we drank them with my Gramma, and then she made us a mix we could take out to the motor home with us and make later. When we made them we notices there was a LOT of vodka in them. LOL. They were still good. We also made a CD to commemorate the long weekend of fun, called "Labor Day Slumber Camp CD" (creative huh?), it included such gems as Vanilla Ice, Pat Green, and the glorious Barry Manilow. -Side Note- Just now I was trying to think of Barry Manilow's name, and I was asking around "who is that guy that sings that sappy love songs, sparkly clothes, Clay Aiken reminds me of him? And everyone was saying "Michael Buble? Niel Diamond?" and Melvin, the only black guy here, who works security on the side busts out with "BARRY MANILOW!" LOL It was pretty effing funny -End Side Note- And then there was the ice cream. I had purchased Bunny Tracks ice cream, had a little bit of everything in it. And we dished it out, and when I was grabbing her bowl to take them in and rinse them, she hands me a bowl full of nuts. She had eaten all the ice cream and everything, and spit the nuts back in there. She's cute that way.

The last story I will tell today shows how truly great a friend she is. I received an email, telling me that FUSE needed me to make a video about how I would be an asset to their On Air Programming. I had just finished Broadcasting School a few months before, and I was so right for the position. I created an outline for my project. What I would say, what I would wear, the different places we would shoot this masterpiece video that was sure to get me to New York and on my way to fame. So on a Friday, we started. She was the director, camerawoman, and editor. We did shoots down town, where the homeless guy asked us for money, and really all we had was our dinner money on us, and he stomped away yelling at us "a penny woulda helped!", we shot out in the country, next to cows. It was a fabulous video. Her family watched it, I looked cute, we mailed it off. And, well they didn't call me, which was disappointing. The guy they hired was really annoying. We had a great time filming it, and I'm pretty sure her family got a kick out it.

So that is my Jennifarter. So special and so amazing. I'm very lucky to have her as a friend, there are so many more stories I could tell you about her, like how we created The Story Of Ira and the Skull, the MANY concerts we went to, the weenie roast at Katherine's, carving pumpkins and having my arms bust out in hives, playing badminton w/her family, the only time I've worn shorts in front of people since I was about 11. Good times.