My Mega Exciting Life: Booties take Asheville

I was looking for photos of my college roommates and am posting another Hiroshi pic:

ummm... what were we thinking? i don't even know where we were. hiroshi's an outlaw, clay's a reb, and i'm a saloon girl. whatever. where are my shoes, btw?

Ya'll should know that I LOVED college. LOVED it. Here is a pic of me the morning I moved from the family homestead into my dorm room:

this pic is damaged, but suffice to say, i was ready to roll.

When I went to UT as an undergraduate, I played the game of Chance and went potluck for roommates. Gamble, I know. But boy oh boy am I ever glad I did! Never in a million years would I have met these characters. As I've said before, I pride myself on a diverse friend population, and fate brought these four exceedingly different young ladies together:

rachel williams samulski and kelly bird eddy fernandez. rachel is from knoxville and went to farragut high. she and i are nothing alike, but we balance each other perfectly. i corrupted her - i taught her to smoke. kelly was from virginia and she and i were perfect too - both ready to have a good time. i did not have to teach kelly how to smoke.

me and kelly in our dorm room. kelly bird was my roommate, rachel was our suitemate. i called kelly birdy eddy "keddy eddy." i'm funny.

me and rachel's roommate, meredith lutz shaw. we called her merri. merri was from lenior, nc; a debutante and graduate of an all-girls boarding school. she taught us all how to smoke like a lady.

One day, early into our friendship, Rachel called Merri "Bootie" because, for some reason, that's what she called her dog at home. Fortunately (unfortunately?) the name stuck, and the four of us became the Booterheads.

here we are at my wedding - the four booties! once, my father asked me about the name "booter." I very solemnly told him that it was a family name from the william's family tree and it was rachel's middle name. Months later, he said to my mother, "Did you know that rachel's middle name is 'BOOTER?'" It still cracks me up. On our wedding programs, I begged my mother to please put Rachel's name in as "Rachel B. Williams." She would not. MAMA. that was 12, count 'em, TWELVE years ago!

I haven't been in the same room with Rachel and Merri since my wedding. BUT THEN. The moon was in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars.... and, we made plans and got together. Kelly lives in Phoenix, so we're going to *try* to get together soon, but since the three of us live so close, we decided to do a pre-full-blown-out-roommate-get-together trial run in Asheville, NC.

Result? Success.

First, Rachel shows up to pick me up and go. Here we are!

whee! let's hit the road!

Rachel loses no time. She immediately tells me my skirt is too short. (I seriously hear you across town going, "Oh, Bootie...")

she also said i have until i'm through with 35 to stop wearing short skirts. so, one more year. siiiiiggghhh....

In addition to my uncanny ability to find four-leaf clovers, I also have an uncanny ability to spot wildlife on the side of the road as I whiz by at 75 MPH. So, just about the time we cross into NC, I spot a puppy on the side of the interstate. Here is an exchange of what follows:

me: "Awww, Bootie, did you see that puppy?"

rach: "No! What puppy?" Where?"

me: "There was a puppy on the side of the road. Oh well."

rach: "Should we go get it?"

me: "No. It's a puppy; it'll be fine."

rach, pulling over: "Oh Bootie, don't you think we should go back and get it?"

me, panicking because we're slowing down and pulling over on an interstate where cars go by at 75 MPH: "No, Bootie, no! He'll be fine, let's go on!"

rach: "But, I want to go get the puppy! Let's go back, we can walk."

me: "Bootie, we've come, like, half a mile. We can't go back and get the puppy."

rach: "But, we can't leave the puppy! We have to go back!"

Sigh....

Long story short; we got to the next exit, turned around, went to the next exit, turned around and went on Operation Puppy.

Shockingly, we did find the puppy. Not so shockingly, he wouldn't get in the car.

here, puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy

PUPPY! come HERE!

I thought that was the end of it, but Rachel decided that wasn't enough. She pulled over *again* at the same exit we had just pulled over and went inside to find out where we were so she could call animal control to come out and pick up the puppy. I kept insisting that Exit 447 would be descriptive enough, but NO! She needed a city name, so she pulled into the driveway and left me in the car with the engine running and ran into a river tubing operation to find out where we were.

She came back fifteen minutes later with a fistful of tubing pamphlets.

raft family adventure, anyone?

She jumped in the car declaring how late we are to Asheville. She drove all of 30 seconds, then stopped again to buy boiled peanuts because Merri loves them so.

Sigh. Is it any wonder this girl was late to every class her freshman year? I totally think she could teach Dawdling 101.

she also had no cash so i had to buy the peanuts. convenient, no?

Then, REUNION!! Wheee! We had lunch. The concierge convinced us to try the Fiddlesticks at Barley's. Ummm... notsomuch. But we had a good time nonetheless!

fiddlesticks... um... hmmm... good times anyway!

We went around town, shopping. I bought three dresses (totes steals! and I'm SUCH a GIRL), one pair of shoes, soap, a wallet, nail polish, a sweater, a top and five pair of undergarments.

Mast General Store is in Knoxville and in Asheville! Have visited the Knoxville location often and love it. In Asheville... um... well....

i always feel like, somebody's watching me!

mr. smith worked at a kilwin's in college! in sarasota! we came across this one, but i was so full of fiddlesticks i couldn't stomach any ice cream or fudge. next time!

We went into an emporium, and walked into this stall. I was like... umm... familiar? RaRa Schlitt! She did a fundraiser for the foundation I worked for previously. See?

love her work! thanks, rara!

these santas are what drew me in! ho ho ho, love the santas!

whoo whoo! whoo whoo! hahahaha, how cute are these guys? (i totes took a pic to steal this design. be forewarned: this is your christmas present...)

in our hotel! how cute are we all?

Next, it was time for supper.

no joke: rachel insisted on driving. please be aware; i am in the parking lot of the restaurant we dined at. in the background is our hotel. she drove. again: parking lot. hotel. parking lot. hotel.

Ah, who am I kidding. I loved it! Thank you, Bootie, for keeping me safe!!

Hilarity ensued:

hilarity

hilarity II

our hotel had an itty bitty general store! jeez, where is mr. olsen when you need him?

Next day, we went shopping AGAIN. Asheville Big Lots, ladies and gents:

clorets! apparently, this is a helluva find. who knew? not me! $1 a pack!

Went to lunch; Rachel got P and O'd at the service at O'Charley's.

the yeast rolls, on the other hand? to die for! at the end of the visit, the waitress asked us to take a quality control survey and said, and i quote, "we strive for five... (rolls eyes) they make us say that." nice.