Well, this is cute. The
blog’s reader is now doing a post for the blogger to read. Just kidding… I know
that Dara the Wise Woman has garnered many a fan through this Groundlings
business.
As I begin this, it’s
12:02 and all my college apps have been in for almost an hour and a half. Not
sure why I’m being so Proust-esque, but I thought that should be noted.
Basically, if you’re reading this, you’re reading the work of a kid who is
currently experiencing a bit of post-college-app stress disorder.
But moving on.
Tuesday
I arrived at the castle
after dinner on Tuesday after a long day of Doodle Jump and texting. My mom
Cynthia, who will be from now on be referred to as “Tinsey,” miraculously got
us to the Aventura Wonderland with a little (a lot) of help from navigator Dara
and Ilyse the also-helpful person.
I was greeted by Danyele
and her posse. I got a lay of the land and met Sari and received some delish
cous cous from Ilyse and parted with my fam. (It would be a long, long 18 hours
until I saw them again.)
From here, Dara and I
awkwardly watched Danyele and her friends swim at the “horrendous” Aventura
pool system. I devoured my cous cous on a beginner plate and we discussed crazy
theater people and the contents of Dara’s wallet and you know… the typical
things people talk about when they haven’t seen each other in forever… like the
teen sex cabanas that Joey so beautifully pointed out.
Speaking of Joey, he was
quite the hero of the night. More on that later.
We wandered back to the
house and I got all set up on my mattress and cleaned Dara’s filthy computer,
among other assorted fun and "ablutions". Meanwhile, the other guests in the
house had gone with Joey to McDonald’s for, you know, a post-dinner meal.
When they got back, Dara
and I joined them and watched a horror movie whose title and plot I don’t
remember. But I do remember a lot of through-the-hand stabbing and a skull
floating in water… And a lot of car wash creepiness.
Dara eventually got to
video chatting and I got to creepily watch some of her friend’s singing in
Phantom. By now it was like 2 o’clock, so we called it a night.
Wednesday
We got a late start on
Wednesday after all the excitement from the night before. I ate an absolutely
delicious Belgian waffle for breakfast. Since this is Dara’s blog, it’s time
for a little mockery.
“The chocolate chips were
soft while still being crunchy, and the sugar crunched with such zing. The
overall flavor was just so rich and perfect and a little bit like Conor
Oberst.” –Dara-tic interpretation
So anyways, we watched
part of an indie movie over breakfast.
But then more fun began…
We played Bananagrams!
Dara’s actually really good at it, but I swear she always breaks her board in
two. I think it was a game later that night, but it should be noted that in one
round she managed the words “men,” “man,” and “sex”… I think there were others.
She’s so homeschool.
So we ate some more (I
mean, it’d been like two hours) and then Joey began his long day of chauffeuring.
On the way to the soccer fields, he blasted Lady GaGa and then apologized to
the old man next to us who was less-than-pleased with the decibel rating.
And then came the big
moment…
After a little searching,
Dara met Tinsey. Love at first sight! Even on the pre-game Starbucks run, they
hit it off big time. From discussing parental occupations to college plans to
homeless week, Dara and Tinsey were a match made in heaven.
As the soccer game
commenced, Dara became a spectator in every sense of the word. Actually, I’m
not sure how many senses of the word there are, but she put on some sunscreen
and asked a lot of questions. Missss F’s team won 1-0, and everyone (Dara
especially) was very into the game.
Afterwards, Dara had to
take a few minutes just to reflect and take it all in. Only partially kidding…
We dropped Effie off at
the hotel and had a quick almond-and-eyeliner run in the ever-classy Miramar.
(Side note – in my head, Miramar and Myanmar sound the same. It’s a classy
mistake.)
We had some nice
conversations about our dreams and I washed my gross Floridian feet and we
headed out for a night in the foreign land of Myan--- Miramar.
Per Joey’s suggestion, we
ventured a few shopping malls over to the very-happening restaurant called
Lime. Though I did not have any lime in my meal, the restaurant definitely had
a lot of tang to it. Think Moe’s gone a little ritzy.
Dara and Tinsey continued
to hit it off as they discussed my intolerance for stupid people and Dara’s
theatrical ambitions.
After dinner, we went into
a store that was a complete rip-off of Forever 21. This would be insignificant,
except that Missss F was able to try on some beautiful glittery high heels.
Gorgeous.
As Tinsey drove us halfway
back to Dara’s house, we endured some more Florida roads. But at last we were
reunited with Ilyse! After a philosophical car ride home, the party really
began…
We played Bananagrams with
Sari and stalked a certain TiPster who has a creepy amount in common with Dara…
To counter the stress of the obnoxious child’s similarities with Dara, we did
the only sensible thing we knew to do: we ate! We walked with Joey and the dogs
over to the Whole Foods complex and had some delicious peppermint ice cream.
The trip was yummy but the real flava started when we tried to reenter their
community.
Because I’ll not a local,
the details of the foreign land have already faded, but basically the
Manny-from-Modern-Family-all-
To decompress, naturally
we had to play some more Bananagrams. We then read and made fun of some beautiful
college essays and then Dara decided to take a late shower. We then discussed
our exotic travels well into the wee hours of the morning.
Thursday
Hooray for sleeping
through alarms! We woke up and I ablutionated (i.e. showered) for once then Dara and Sari and
I headed out for a very fun morning in Aventura Mall.
The first order of
business was finding a parking space, which was no small feat. We pleased our
olfactory bulbs at Lush and then headed to the disposable clothing store
(Forever 21).
We – particularly I
– spent most of the time looking at completely unnecessary items, and
hypothetically bought 3 pairs of strange socks, completely un-earth-tone nail
polishes, and some nice little gloves.
Dara was extraordinarily
pleased that her sweater, socks, and nail polish all matched themselves. Just
thought her OCD should be noted somewhere.
We got the yummiest bubble
tea – actually bubble coffee, in my case – and got Sari some froyo. But
the fun had hardly begun – we had to visit the infamous Whole Foods. Sari
gave me a quick but highly informative tour of the location of the pickles, ketchup, and olives and we grabbed lunch.
Joey and Dara and I quickly scampered
out the door to get Dara to Light in the Piazza rehearsal. The trip didn’t take
nearly the two-hour-haul that it sometimes takes – personally, I took that
as an omen that I’m good luck.
We dropped Dara off, and
Joey and I went on a date to – get this – a Whole Foods. We drank weird
sprout drinks and munched on sushi and generally basked in our classiness. Just
kidding – I banged my head against a wall about a college essay. What’s
new?
On the way back to
Aventura Land, I enjoyed listening to talk of the apartment where Dara was
created and other Homer tidbits.
We were going to eat at
this Chinese place, but the dynamic just didn’t feel quite right. (That was one
of the themes of the trip: dynamics of different groups/places/anything
really.) So instead we went to a Japanese/Thai place and devoured edamame,
salads, fried tofu, and pad thai. I interrogated Dara and the Father Man about
their favorite foods… all the while, Dara struggled to focus on the
conversation as the Lion King was playing on a nearby iPad of a toddler.
Not sure why I’m
remembering the next part, but we ventured to the water area and thought we saw
a rodent on a rope – quite scary, right? But it was just a fish
– what a let down! As Dara told me THE ENTIRE TRIP, the weather was
perfect – cold for Florida. Just thought that if you’ve made it this far
you should have the privilege of knowing about the dynamic of the air
molecules.
We returned to the Homer
Home and ate some dessert and joked about all the homeschool things around. I
also took this opportunity to clean Danyele’s absolutely-disgusting computer. A
dirty computer is very homeschool, in case you were wondering.
We watched Limitless,
which started off promising but became very disappointing as it wore on. Dara then rolled around with
Clara for a few minutes (not making this up – it left me scarred), and
then we went upstairs and heard about theater drama and everything. Thought I
should brag on myself right about here – I may or may not have been very
helpful to Danyele’s Words with Friends game right about now.
It was like 1:30 in the
morning, but that didn’t stop us… once again, we talked about dynamics until
the wee hours. How could we not?
Friday
We woke up to the call of
Tinsey and Effie – they were leaving for Aventura. After frantically packing
and devouring a delicious omelet compliments of Chef Homer, we snapped a couple
of quick pictures our ourselves before heading out for shopping, take two.
We met Tinsey in her
natural habitat – a restaurant. Just kidding. Also, in her defense, it was
almost lunch time for people not on a nearly-nocturnal schedule.
We shopped the Urban
Outfitters sale racks like professionals – Dara and Missss F even got
matching $5 shirts! What winners. I’d also like to make it known that I bought
3 items of clothing for a mere $21 – incredible.
As we faced our final
moments together, again we turned to food (but not before a quick stop into
Victoria’s Secret, home of the adorable chihuahuas). Effie had boba and Dara
and I went to Starbucks… Then we met up with Tinsey and started the departure.
I really do apologize for
this annoyingly-detailed account. Hopefully Dara will have edited out some of
the minutia. But I really just wanted to try to capture a bit of the
amazingness of these 2.5 days – though I don’t really think this did the trick,
at least it can jog my memory in the future.
I’d like to close out with
some uncommon-for-Hannah reflection…
Seeing Dara in person was
of course excellent – but thanks to Skype and Gtalk and whatnot, we were
still in such great touch. For all the time that our generation wastes on
Facebook and the internet in general, I think there’s something to be said for
keeping in touch for 3.5 years! Here’s to seeing each other in 2012, where the
fun and games can continue.
Until then, I hope I can
defeat the Homer sisters in Words with Friends! Happy New Years!
Post script:
God, I make it sound like
we’re going out. Sorry, eager readers, the term "Facebook EX-wife" still applies. :)
-
Click here for some of my Facebook chats with Hannah a couple years back- we were even weirder then than we are now! <3
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