Chicas Of Faith 2008 - The Jenster Of My Dreams

Our plane got in a little before 8:30pm and as we are walking through the airport discussing where it is we are going to find our ride/tour guide/hotel hostess, we hear our names being called by a tiny voice in the distance. We turn and see a petite lady with a giant smile coming toward us. Do you know, Jen (as I am now allowed to call her) is nothing like I thought she would be and just like I thought she would be all at the same time. She is a softer, sweeter version InRealLife of the she of my imagination. Here is a summary of Jen gathered from our entire trip of knowing her.

J - Joyful
E - Eloquent
N - Nutty
S - Sweet
T - Triumphant
E - Encouraging
R - Radical

It was as though we had grown up in the same family. We fell right into conversation as we made our way to her prime parking space and loaded up our luggage. (Guitars made it safe and sound in case you were wondering)

GGG rode shotgun and she and Jen spent the ride back to Jensterville chatting about history, trivia and theology and all things interesting yet way too above me to participate, except for the ridiculous crack here and there. Jen pointed out to us that in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, many of the skyscrapers in Philadelphia were lit up in pink lights. That was so neat. Sorry - still haven't taken any pictures yet. I can't remember all the talky talk that went on on the way to Jensterville (otherwise known as home). I just remember smiling the entire time and thinking how wonderful it is that my two friends were hitting it off and that I got to sit in on it.
We made it to the house and unloaded our luggage. Jen showed us to our room. There were chocolates set out for us on our bed! And also, we got to room with Arwyn! Arwyn is Jenster's husband's Martin made guitar.
*Dear Todd, although we lusted mightily after Arwyn, we did never one time touch her in any way, shape or form. Also, we lusted mightily after your Black and Decker tool with the guitar string twister attachment thingy, and restrained from fondling her as well.*
So anyway, here is where you can go over and give sympathy to Jenster for she had to endure the euphoric part of the cycle of my current medication. I am pretty sure that I told her my entire life story. All.night.long. I could not stop talking. I kept thinking to myself and then saying out loud, "Oh my gosh! I HAVE to stop!" Then I would say, "I am SO SORRY. You do not have to endure this! You can go to bed." She was so gracious and kind and funny. She finally told me that I was going to have to stop apologizing. What she probably wanted to say was, "NO, I didn't need to know about that bunny you had when you were 2 that was later used to make a pregnancy test for the neighbor who lived on the farm next door because they had already eaten their bunnies the winter before." Okay, I didn't tell her all that. Mostly because she finally ran away at 1:30am and maybe a little because that never happened. I was just trying to give you a fictional, yet dramatically accurate indication of what she had to endure. I was about 1/4 through the process of re-stringing my guitar at that point and nowhere close to ready to sleep. GGG had given up shortly after we had arrived at the house because she was fighting hard against a migraine. This was to be her fate the entire trip the poor dear. She was such a trooper though.

Sidebar: I know you are all wondering why I would re-string my guitar on vacation. Let me explain. I am a novice at tuning my guitar. When the strings(all 12) are de-tuned, or loosened, it is an equal amount of work for me to re-tune it, or replace the strings all together. When you fly with a guitar, it is possible if you do not loosen the strings, that it could actually snap into pieces. As I am not willing to take that chance with my beloved, the strings must be loosened. SO, because it is so much work for me to re-tune anyway, I try to make it a habit to put on new strings when I travel with my guitar.
I forgot to mention that Jen's children arrived home while we were chatting and I got the pleasure of meeting them. They also were not what I imagined, but they were just as they should be.

So, now I was faced with being completely dressed but ready to go to bed while my suitcases were in the dark in the room with the lady fighting the migraine. It took me about 20 minutes to decide whether I should just lay on the couch fully dressed across the room from Sookie in her crate and possibly disturb my host family like some crazy vagrant OR awake the poor dear with the goingtoruinhertrip headache. I decided that I would go quietly as I could upstairs and just get in the bed fully dressed. I know how to compromise and reason.

Thankfully, when I cracked open the door, GGG was sort of lucid. She said that she needed to take another pain pill. So she needed just enough light for me to be able to find my jammies. There you have it. Off to dreamland I went thinking, "I heart Jenster."