Missing Redras

The other day, El Senor came from the mailbox with a package. He said to me, "I got a package, unless you know someone in Texas." I said that I didn't know anyone in Texas. And then he made me keep thinking and I realized that I knew Redras in Texas. The package was from Redras!

The package was my birthday present... only three months late. (What she didn't know is that it came just in time for my three-year home-from-the-mission anniversary, so she could have claimed it was for that.) But the package pretty much solidified her status as my best roommate ever (again, apologies to others who have lived with me). Every item in the package had meaning. Allow me to share with you what I received:

1. Three CDs: Two CDs of Bach because we watched our boyfriend Mark Ruffalo once in a movie with Yo-Yo Ma playing cello stuff in the background. And we both liked it. One CD was Billie Holiday and then an interview with David Sedaris on his ability to do Billie Holiday impressions. Redras and I are both Sedaris fans, so the meaning of this was immediately obvious.

2. One package of brownies. Last summer was the summer of popsicles, partly because it was also the summer of no air conditioning and repeatedly broken swamp cooler. In Redras's own words, "I included the brownies for two reasons. First, sending popsicles is unfeasible, and second, around the first week of February I was trying to motivate myself to just send the freaking package already, so I thought that if I bought brownies to put in that would make it more Valentine-y and then I would HAVE to send it in the next week. My strategy backfired." (Note: Redras could have also included some Coldstone ice cream, because at least twice a month, she and I would make a trip for ice cream. At least twice a month. Get it?)

3. Mots d'heures: Gousses, Rames. Oh, now this is a story. The last week that Redras and I were living together, I emailed her the following poem:

Un petit d'un petit
S'étonne aux Halles
Un petit d'un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu'importe un petit d'un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes

She never said anything about it, and our last evening together, as we were cleaning out and clearing out our apartment, I said to her, "Did you ever get that poem I emailed to you?" Redras said, "Oh, yeah, that. I looked it over but didn't really have time to read it carefully." So I explained it to her. I started by reciting it out loud---imperative to understanding this poem. I repeated it again and again until she got it. See, the poem, though composed of French words, is actually Humpty Dumpty. The French words mean something completely different, but phonetically, they actually make the English version of Humpty Dumpty. It's incredible and it's funny. And after Redras and I had a good laugh at how cool it was, a look of extreme embarrassment crossed her face as she said, "I have to confess something! I did read it! I read it again and again, but I didn't get it, so I lied to you and told you that I barely looked it over!"

Well, the third item, Mots d'heures: Gousses, Rames (Mother Goose Rhymes) is a collection of several phonetically English, but transcribedly French Mother Goose Rhymes that Luis d'Antin van Rooten wrote. So cool Redras. You get points for thoughtful gifts!

4. A shirt with Bob Sagat's face on it. This made me laugh. And laugh, and laugh. Redras is the best. See, I confessed to her once that I had a crush on one of our professors (she never understood the crush). One day a couple months ago, I was flipping though channels (a very Redras-ly thing to do...) and I thought I saw the professor on tv. I went back to that channel and realized it wasn't the professor. It was Bob Saget. I immediately emailed Redras with a Freudian analysis of my crush on the professor, saying that obviously, my crush on the professor came from the fact that my subconscious linked him to Bob Saget, the beloved father figure on Full House, a television show I watched as a child. So Redras made me a shirt with Bob Saget's face. She said that she would have made it with the professor's face on it, but she couldn't find a picture of him in a high enough resolution. To this, I responded, "I LOVE that I have a Bob Saget shirt, and really, I'm glad it was a picture of him and NOT the professor b/c as funny as it is to have Saget on my shirt, it would just be CREEPY to have our professor hovering over my boobs at all times."

So Redras, you're the best. I can't wait till you move back up to SLC and into the condo. I know that El Senor won't mind having another roommate, especially since you're much better at doing the dishes than I am (you were always a good little dish fairy). Let's just not tell him until you actually move in, though.