Sunday, July 29, 2012

Getting It Done, or Stuff I Cannot Do At All That My Friend Totally Is Genius At Doing, an Ode: by Allison

So boo sad, most funnest beach week vacation with awesome friends has come to a close, have sealed up the memories I choose to remember in my vault of  This Is How It Went, and delivered daughters V and E to lovely, wholesome, mountain summer camp, complete with smiley waving counselors greeting you to the point where you worry they may be robots. No worries! Not robots! Just very nice and smiley and welcome-y. And now I have week with M the six year old stylist, and she has agenda already plotted out, and it is awesome agenda involving product procurement and spa treatments.


Also making care packages for V and E, and also L, my childhood friend B's daughter, who lives in a fantastic fab city that is awesome and fun to visit but is currently at camp with E because they are super friends, and probably the best thing to happen from our most funnest vacation with my childhood friends and their non-lame spouses and kids is this:  not only do we get to all stay friends and hang out and have (number of years redacted due to author's vanity) lots of memories and subreferences stored away to joke about, but now our kids know each other and are friends. Is wild.


I am thinking that if somehow I could transport myself back to middle school (Note: by the way, I am never ever doing that and do not want it to happen in case anyone has time machine hear this:  I am not going back to middle school)  and inform Middle School Allison that my future daughter would be super friends and go to camp with B's future daughter, Middle School Allison would be all "Wha?"  And Current Allison would immediately get distracted by Middle School Allison's ridiculous hair and clothing choices and totally go off-script instead of explaining how great it is/will be that my friends are so super awesome or imparting wise thoughts and counsel such as :

1.Nobody is looking at you, I promise,  they are all too worried about themselves and whether other people are noticing them to pay attention to your unfortunate bangs, chill out.

2. Stop having stomachaches, people will eventually be as tall as you, in fact the first one will be your friend B, future father of your future daughter E's friend.

3. Do not take driver's ed from someone with open dip cup on the dashboard.



I have digressed. (Shock!) Back to the present (See how I referenced time machine movie pop-culturally relevant to this story? Am genius) my  E and my friend B's  L are even pen pals through Girl Scouts, otherwise known as L's mom, RTG (Note: this means she is R the girl, have to distinguish between R's because RTB is R the boy, known super smart, cool, stealth mixologist) is so together than on top of being important finance person and mom and trapeze artist (I am not making that up)  and all, she makes it happen that our girls' troops are pen pals and letter writing and such commences.


 RTG is my friend because childhood friend B had good sense to marry her, so I get to be friends like free gift with purchase, and her fabulosity is in my head now (No offense to any other fantastic person I know, I seem to have lots of thoughts that turn into ramblings that turn into me writing a whole lot, I promise I will get to you, but I do accept bribes to speed up the process, just saying) because after most funnest beach vacation ever with funnest friends, RTG and I rode together into mountains to deliver our kids to Camp Happy (Note: that is not actual camp name.)
(Also Note: It totally should be their name, and if they change it, I want credit)


So RTG and her superpowers are in my head, because they are mysterious and amazing to me because I cannot do any of them. Her superpower is being The Most Together Person Ever Who Gets It Done. (Note: Actually I use a different word than "it" but it rhymes with "it" and she would not care if I said it, so if I slip up, sorry)
She is combination of Person Who Has Idea Of What Needs To Happen (I can do that part sometimes, with varying degrees of success) and Person Who Makes It Happen (I am really bad at that). I have found that it is rare combination to get person who can do both really well, equally well, and super fast, so that is her superpower. I do not have a costume picked out, but I know it will have pockets because she likes pockets. Why? Because:

1. Pockets are awesome!  Unless on pants cut in unflattering way and if that is case, get tailor to sew them shut, those are Evil Pockets, that is not what I am talking about.

2. Pockets hold RTG's Phone of Knowledge, in which she summons up whatever it is we are talking about or need to know in one second.  Am serious. We can be sitting around talking about which movie star has grossed the most in their career adjusted for inflation and not adjusted for inflation, as you do, and she will whip out Phone of Knowledge and tap tap tap, we have answer. My way would be, let's discuss for ten hours, digress into other conversations, eventually make our way back to topic but totally not at all find out any actual information on topic.


It could be that she is totally messing with us and she is fake tap tap tapping and making up stuff (Note: none of us got it right who is top grossing movie star, and some of these people work in that industry and one of these people has read or processed or seen or absorbed every piece of information that has ever been produced, not kidding, will do Ode to J The Information Expert Who Knows All But Is Not Annoying About It later), RTG could be making stuff up on her fake phone which is not even phone but iCarly remote, but I don't think so, I think it is for real.


Aside from Immediate Provider of Whatever, she just Gets It Done. She wants to learn to be trapeze artist? Done. Work in world of finance and still have personal life and still get promoted and awarded and such? Done. Both Idea Person and Executor of Idea Person are seldom same person, in cute vintage dress (with pockets) but in RTG's case, is same person.

Would make me hate her, except she is awesome and also I would flop on ground like fish out of water (granted, a fish with a very cool idea about what we should do today and a fish with lip balm and Tide to Go and Neutrogena Makeup Wipes), but Allison the floppy fish cannot Get It Done. This is why I am bedazzled by RTG's skills.


And also, if I am ever stranded in Siberia tied to a tree? Block of ice? Military tank? What do you get tied to in Siberia? See, I cannot even finish a sentence!! Cannot even tie myself to the right thing, if she were here, RTG would have answer in one second. I am way too lazy to even Google, which is absurd of me because in law school I had to go find dusty old Federal Reporters in the library to do research, uphill, in the snow, and now I am like, eh, I'm tied to something yuk, that'll do.


So whatever it is that I am tied to, and by the way, I do not want to be tied to anything in Siberia, or go to Siberia, this is just example, but say I am stuck somewhere I do not want to be, RTG would be my one phone call.
She would zoom in wearing her as-yet-designed superhero outfit (Note: that is temporary problem, she and B also have daughter C, who is M the six year old stylist's opinionated-defined sense of style and other things soul mate, and they will TOTALLY design her superhero outfit, so at this point being childhood friends with B is like not only free gift with purchase, it is like, "Here, take all our stuff, the good stuff, not the ugly unmatching lipstick and weird toner nobody uses, take what you want" with purchase what with our daughters being awesome friends as well as RTG saving me from tigers in Siberia (I am pretty sure that is a thing), that is a super bonus of continued friendship with B, who let it be known, I would be friends with even if he did not have Assortment of Fantastic People accompanying him, he himself is great and fun and awesome, which is why I was friends with him in the first place and still am friends with him --  even if I cannot Get It Done, I am no dummy and know that awesome friends are not easy to come by, but as B is probably the person who benefits most from RTG's Get It Done voodoo, I am sure he is fine with me going on and on about her today) and RTG would untie me from railroad tracks or nuclear plant or whatever bad thing I've gotten myself into, and we'd zip off to do something fun.

So Lesson of Today is this:
1. Note to all the middle school girls reading this,
First, you should not be reading this. Go read Jane Austen she is awesome and snarky but in a literary way, and you will thank me about Darcy.
But second, if you run across a crop of awesome friends, DO NOT do the "we'll stay in touch once we go to college" thing which means you will totally NOT stay in touch. Stay in touch, if the friends remain awesome.  You youngsters have it easy anyway thanks to Al Gore and the Internets, we had to write letters, and mail them at a place you had to buy stamps, uphill, in the snow. So long as they stay awesome, stay friends. Your future children will thank you, even if the idea of that totally grosses you out, which it SHOULD, you are in middle school, no having children. Watch the video (DVD? Am old) on that in health class.

2. Do not go to Siberia unless you can wrangle tigers or know someone who Gets It Done.