Lou-Who comes to town

(Cindy and Lo, 2003, Freshman dorm at VCU)

Cindy and Lauren came to the city for an art conference and we had a sleep over. 

I should've taken pictures of us driving around my neighborhood at 1AM laugh-crying out of frustration and exhaustion in not finding decent parking, but alas, I did not. So all you get is Cindy and I at Sunday brunch. Sans Lauren.

Cindy-Lou-Who and I were grade school besties and college roommates our freshman year at VCU.

I love her and her sweet family. Time to show them off...

Picture stolen from Cindy's FB page

Her husband, Mat, is the creator and head of VCU RamNation (remember when I ran into him at a bar after our Final Four loss?) and their daughter, Jude, is possibly the most beautiful child on the planet. And Merle is... Well Merle is their dog. Doesn't he just look like a Merle?

And here's us girls (including the beautiful Kate & the famous 'Poppy', formerly known as PoppyDoodle - Cindy's Dad) at Mat & Cindy's wedding in May, 2010. This is to help restore the image you may have of Lauren and Cindy after seeing that Freshman year pic at the top of this post. They HATE that picture.

Lou-Who is the most fun, non-judgmental, free spirited, friend I've ever made. We met in kindergarten and were separated once in 3rd grade due to her "gifted" brains and she finished elementary school somewhere else in a smarty pants program. We were reunited in 6th grade when she was thrust back into our crazy school district. After one year, her parents sent her to a much better private school, separating our social lives yet again, but luckily we continued to live in the same neighbor hood so the sleep overs continued until her family finally moved across town in 9th grade. Some of my best childhood memories took place in the basement of that first house though. After HS we were reunited a 2nd time when we decided to room together at VCU rather than get strangers for a roommates. After graduating in 2007, Cindy took an internship in BK and we were reunited again after a 3yr hiatus. I swear, since freshman year, we've see each other more when we're both in NY than we ever did when we were both living in RIC. It was after her summer here that she decided to head home and start a family with Mat. Then a year and a half later, she married him and that's all she wrote... 

Cindy unknowingly reminds me that life is a blast and that it's okay to loosen up when I get a little uptight. She has no idea how much I look up to her. And of course, I appreciate all of Poppy's unrelenting, yet denied, tomato juice offers over the last 22years, but that's neither here nor there. I was going to list my all time best Cindy memories in this post, but the list got FAR too long. Let's just say, I would've never made it through middle school if not for our sleep over shenanigans. I hope she comes to visit again soon! And maybe brings Jude this time for a girls weekend. Man, that little girl has no idea how funny she's going to seem to her 6th grade best friend! And that friend has no idea how much she's going to LAUGH her 6th grade butt off!

Love,

~Kare*  (or RiRi according to freshman-version-Cindy)