To Be Continued...

I'm about 100% certain that there's no way I'm going to do my friend Vicki justice with this piece. There's really no way to capture Vicki via translation -- you really have to experience her to truly appreciate her. At least, that's my take on it. Vicki and my mom became friends about 20 years ago and have been tight ever since. Somewhere along the way I was brought into the fold and we will all be family forevermore...

Vicki is one of my all-time favorite people on the planet. She has been through everything and anything you could possibly think of and then some more on top of that. And through it all, she is an innocent, curious, questioning soul. I can never get enough of her enthusiasm for life and her friends and her complete lack of inhibition. I always get the sense I'm around a 5-year-old who is just beginning to discover her surroundings and who can't learn enough, love enough, or laugh enough. She's one of a handful of people on the planet who are guaranteed to make me happy to be here.

That being said...

Two of my favorite Vicki stories collided last Thursday, and part of me thinks it can't be coincidental.

Several years ago, I was up in NJ visiting Vicki with my mom. Vicki got a phone call and started flipping out. She looked like an Arab woman keening beside her fallen son... She lets out a Jersey-esque, "I'm DYIN' here!!" and then yells, "Farrah Fawcett's dead??!!"

This was around 2002 and as we all know, Farrah Fawcett wasn't dead yet. Nope. After about 3 minutes of confused conversation, Vicki realized the caller was trying to tell her that her friend, Paul Fawcett, was dead. Only problem was, after all that carrying on over Farrah, Vicki seemed a little blase about poor Paul...

A couple years later, Vicki has moved to a house with an outdoor pond. She's got it stocked with giant goldfish (maybe?) and she goes out one morning only to discover one of the fish has been killed. She starts crying hysterically (this is one of her more endearing traits) and her neighbor (who happens to be black) asks her if she's okay. And Vicki's response?

"THE COONS GOT MICHAEL JACKSON!!!"

To which her black neighbor, who you think might be mildly offended by her casual use of the word "coons," instead responds,

"WHAAAAAAAAT?????!!!!!" in sheer horror over this event.

It seems Vicki had seen raccoons around her pond and the fish who was missing? Yes, his name was Michael Jackson... And come to think of it, I think it's because he lightened over time. Ha!

So I couldn't help but think of Vicki and smile when I heard that Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died on the same day. Vicki regularly provides so much joy to the universe that I suspect on this day the universe winked back.