Love, Jimmie

From left to right: Squash, Nurse Bananahammock, Woney, and Jimmie

Did I ever tell you guys how Woney and I met? Doesn’t matter, I’m going to tell you anyway. I’m also going to tell you how I met Squash and Nurse Bananahammock because it’s all related.

You guys ever have one of those days where you think to yourself, “Screw it. A whole giant bag of M&Ms is a great idea and ima eat it, all right now. I don’t care if I’m a porker.” Y’all ever do that? Well I do, and I was having one of those rocky patches where I was passionate about M&Ms on a regular basis and I knew I needed an intervention. I logged onto the Weight Watchers message boards and threw out a request for a diet coach. I wanted a stranger who would not be nice to me and tell me that I deserved that giant bag of M&Ms when I clearly did not need them. I wanted someone stern and willing to listen and someone who understood what I was struggling with. Woney, a complete and total stranger to me, responded with “Hey, why not? I’m in.”

Meeting strangers in person after meeting online is always fun I say, so I flew out to San Diego to meet her not long after our initial email exchange; once we established that neither of us were ax murderers or glitter eyeliner thieves, we began traveling together. We average at least four trips a year although now that she’s in Mississippi we get together more often. Oh, and for the record, we diet-coached each other for approximately three minutes before we gave up all pretenses about those giant bags of M&Ms.

About 18 months ago, Woney invited me to a web page where a group of women gather on social media to list three good things every day. It was a practice started on those Weight Watcher message boards long ago, and it gravitated over into other non-weight-loss-related sites. Through that page I met more strangers, two of which you know as Squash and Nurse Bananahammock.

As an aside here, right before I flew to Tampa to meet strangers, someone asked me, “Aren’t you scared? You don’t know anything about them! I’d be so afraid!”

Y’all, it never occurred to me to be afraid. I think of strangers as friends I have not yet met and that there was a golden opportunity to meet some new friends. Plus, Woney already knew them and she was still alive and in possession of her glitter eyeliner. Plus, Florida. There was no question about my going to meet them. The only question was “how often?”

Tampa was our first visit together. My house for Memorial Day was the next. A trip to Memphis for Woney’s 50th birthday was our third. I missed the fourth one because of my filth-flarn car. The fifth one was this cruise.

Just so that you fully understand me and My Girls, another story is in order.

When we got together at my house for Memorial Day last year, we all arrived at staggered times. Squash and Woney flew in early while I was still at work. By the time I got home, they had already consumed pineapple mimosas (two apiece) for brunch and rum and Cokes (they lost count) for dinner. Also by the time I got home, they had each signed up for a half marathon (happening next month, y’all). Nurse Bananahammock drove in later that evening. By the time she got there, I had had enough rum and Coke cocktails to make me loopy (one) and had signed up for the same half marathon. Paid for it and everything. When Nurse Bananahammock realized how behind she was, she, too, had some cocktails and signed up for the half marathon. And then we had food and movies and more cocktails. It was a great weekend.

About a month or so after that trip, I realized I had a coffee grinder in my kitchen. I don’t own a coffee pot and so I assumed that Woney brought the grinder along with her coffee pot for use at my house.

I texted her, “I have your coffee grinder.”

She texted back, “I don’t have a coffee grinder. It’s not mine.”

Huh. So a few days later I texted Squash and Nurse Bananahammock. “I have somebody’s coffee grinder. You left it at my house.”

Return texts said, “Nope, not mine.”

Huh. I thought about that for a while, completely perplexed. Why in the world was there a coffee grinder in my house?

About a month later I texted Luke about it. I have no idea why. “Do I have your coffee grinder,” I asked, “and if so, why?”

Instantly he texted back, “You guys needed to grind something. Pretty sure it involved alcohol.”

Y’all, not one of us remembers this. No inkling whatsoever of what we were grinding. We, apparently, were diligent in cleaning the grinder out because it was just as sparkly as the day it was new. We are still utterly dumbfounded, and poor Luke. I do vaguely recall making him watch girl movies with us and asking him to hand over his supply of butter for our corn. Oh, the stories he could tell. Oh, the stories I wish I could remember to tell.

Anyway, I’ll be blogging at you soon about this fabulous, wonderful, gorgeous TROPICAL vacation we had. I’m collecting my thoughts and all our photos and trying to gently explain to you that the sweet innocent person you know as Jimmie tends to disappear when she hangs out with Her Girls. Hang on for me, would ya? I’ll be right back.