When I was going to school, I went to quite a few schools.... I went from Rocky Hill Elementary, to Blue Grass when my mom moved after my first grade year. I then went to Bearden Middle for all of one week in middle school until my mom decided that taking us to school every day was way too much and riding the bus that we were zoned for was a lot easier for her. I understand why she transfered us after that week. Starting six grade twice was pretty hard....so, I went to Bearden to Farragut Middle. I hated Farragut. And, being a twin was hard for me. I hated that people considered me the same person as my sister even though we were so different...we fought a lot in the 7th grade... it all had to do with me having my own identity. When my mom and dad gave us the option of splitting up, I was all over it. I transfered to Webb for my eighth grade year and lasted there for all of two years. I just couldn't stand the clicks there. I had some friends, but I think I was a little toooooo tomboy to remain. I joined my twin back at Bearden High for 10th grade (we had our own identities at that point). My mom switched her over when she was a freshman. Bearden was awesome and I am so glad I went to that high school. I probably could have changed schools every year because I just enjoyed meeting new people every day. It wasn't until high school that I actually enjoyed being a twin because we meet twice the people...twice the friends. College was very interesting for us because randoms would come up to me on campus and tell me very private things. So private that I would just basically run as fast as I could away from these strangers later realizing....CRAP, they thought I was Larkin. Sometimes I would just let the random people tell me the really personal crap and try later to describe the people to my sister...and their stories. We both went through this quite often and it became pretty funny. One time in high school we were both dating two guys from Catholic High. We were all four big snow skiers, so we went on a big double date up to Ober Gatlinburg one night (this was back when there was snow on a regular basis up there). So, my boyfriend got out of the car and planted a big huge kiss on my sis....thinking of course it was me. We all four looked at each other really funny, so then to get back at my boyfriend, my sister's boyfriend and I gave each other a replicated kiss to get back. TOO FUNNY....
Getting back to meeting people. Smap use to get upset with me for talking to randoms every where we went. UNTIL 2005....we were standing up on Brass Town Bald in Georgia waiting on the Tour de Georgia to come up the mountain. This was Lance's "last American tour" (I say this because he is now coming out of retirement and racing the Tour de GA next year now). Anyways, we were standing up there freezing our asses off, so I took it upon myself to start talking to a gal standing there in her Dansko clogs ( I heart Dansko clogs and have quite a few pairs). She and I became fast friends and come to find out she was the wife of Tom Danielson, who is/was on Lance's Discovery Team.... After an hour of shooting the sh-t with her, I called Smap over to photograph the two of us....he was like, "why the hell do you want a photo with a person you just met????"....I told him who she was and he was like, "oh, okay"...and then he became fast friends with her. Her husband was the first up the mountain that day and won the stage. Smap landed a press pass to the press conference from our friend Jimi Flynt (she works at HGTV and called the Tour giving them a BS story about HG doing some story on the tour, so she got a nice week long press pass). Jimi was exhausted from standing in the cold all day, so she gave him her pass....good thing her name is Jimi because when Smap ran up there, they were like, "and your name????"...Smap said, "Jimi"....it wouldn't have worked if her name had been Katie. He was in the press conference with Kristen (Tom's wife), so Kristin got Tom's autograph for Smap's Discovery jersey.....then, Tom asked Smap, "Can Lance sign it too"....HOLY COW!!!!!!..... So, to make a long story short, Smap no longer minds if I talk to strangers. You just don't know who you are going to meet. I like talking to strangers....well, if they are sane of course.
Back to the birthdays...I got way off tangent. Another friend of ours Phil Rader, turned 60 last Sunday. He is an incredible cyclist and we spent Wednesday evening riding Haw Ridge with him. I love our friends and I am so grateful to have them. I am so glad Smap turned me onto mountain biking like he did too. I use to cringe when he made me go mountain biking and now it is the other way around. Road biking...cringe cringe.... I still do it, but it is sooooo hard for me now. I would so much rather be on a trail mastering crap that I have been trying for years to master. And, there are ZERO cars. Mountain bikers are SO laid back too....beer after every ride...that is what it is all about.
Enough... sorry for the ramble, but sometimes it is necessary.
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