Hilarious down memory lane guest post!!

When I told Katie I would do a guest post for her, I had no idea what I wanted to write about. After some thought, I decided I would write about…Katie. Let me warn you that I have a fantastic memory.


Before I go too far, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Renee and I am a “real life” friend of Katie. I blog as well, but I pretty much just tell stories about my day-to-day (or week-to-week) life. I don’t enter giveaways or “follow” many people. I’m a simple blogger, I guess. I like to read Katie’s blog because she is open, honest, and—let’s face it—she’s pretty hilarious. So, here’s some fun information about Katie and me and our friendship over the last 20 years (Holy crap, Katie! TWENTY YEARS?!).

I have known Katie since we were in the first grade at Blair Elementary, also known as the ghetto school of Traverse City. We grew up down the street from each other. Our older sisters were best friends, we were best friends. And though we’ve since moved out of our parents’ houses, we’re still right down the street from each other. Probably less than a five minute drive.

My first memory of Katie is from 1st grade. At some point in the 1st grade, all the girls decided that it would be really cool to have a boyfriend. We wrote letters to boys we liked and asked them to be our boyfriend. And at that age, it was cool if two girls (or three or four) had the same boyfriend. It was like you were in some sort of club. No one wanted to be in a relationship alone. That was scary stuff! I wrote a letter to Russell M. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought he would be an easy “yes.” Well, he was. He said yes (who wouldn’t…I mean, I’m pretty amazing). Katie hadn’t written a note to anyone yet. Perhaps she was thinking of an easy yes as well. When she heard that Russell said yes to me, she asked me to see my letter, so that she could write the same letter to him. Yes, we were cool.

I remember that Katie always had the best birthday parties. I don’t remember if she ever had a boy-girl party. I seem to remember lots of girl parties. But her parties were my favorite because there was never a dull moment. They were just good fun. I won’t say “clean” fun, because we were dorks. We danced around to “Like a Virgin.” We held party hats up to our chests and pretended they were boobs. Katie can probably insert some interesting pictures in here from those parties. You know, Katie, the ones I untagged myself from on facebook. Sorry, but I can’t have my students’ parents seeing those. I have to be all professional in front of them. But I don’t think any of them read your blog, so I give you permission to post them on here.

(Yes, that is a hotdog you see :))

One time when Katie was at my house, we got in trouble for something. I don’t remember what, but my mom was really mad. Katie packed up her stuff and started walking down my driveway. When my mom asked her where she was going, she said she was going home because she didn’t like other people’s moms yelling at her. I wish I could have left too. My mom scared me sometimes.

In fifth grade, we had the best teacher ever. I remember two things about Katie in 5th grade. The first was when we were studying geography and we were having some kind of geography bee in the classroom. Mr. Watson would say a country and we would have to name the continent in which it was located. I remember nobody knew Iraq and Iran. But Katie did. When Mr. Watson came to her and said “Iran,” Katie said, “Across Asia.” She made us all laugh, and she got it right. The second 5th grade memory was when Mr. Watson was talking and noticed Katie wasn’t paying attention. He interrupted his lecture with, “And zebra mussels grow on the dark side of the moon, right Katie?” We all looked confused…what the crap was he talking about? Well, Katie wasn’t confused, she knew exactly what to say. She said, very proudly, “Yes.” Too funny.

Katie, did you go out with Jakob Kobza in 6th grade? Gosh, I think I remember “going out” with him. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

Katie’s sister gave her the nickname Katie Bug. I like this name so much, that one day, I want to have a daughter and name her Caitlin so I can call her Catie Bug.

In 5th and 6th grade, Katie and I belonged to an elite club made up of the coolest, most amazing kids at Blair Elementary. It was called, “The Group.” Oh yes. The Group was “the shit.” People had to be voted in, and it was, like, unreal when I was voted in. However, my husband, Ryan Holczman was not voted in. It was horrible. I couldn’t spend time with him and The Group at recess. Yes, Ryan was my husband. We “went out” from 4th grade through 8th grade. He proposed in 5th grade, and we had a wedding ceremony, officiated by Ryan’s best friend, Zach. Then, after the wedding, we were forced to kiss in the middle of a circle of 5th graders. We french kissed. It was bliss. Pure bliss. And not awkward in the least.

One time, at Katie’s house, our older sisters were watching us (I’m pretty sure that they didn’t “watch” us. They just smoked cigarettes and pot like they were cool), and they decided to make elephant ears (probably a result of the pot). We got in a dough fight and threw the dough all over the place. I remember a piece of dough stuck to the ceiling and we couldn’t get it all off. The mark was still there a few years later.

We used to write on the back of Katie’s bedroom door. I’m sure there are lots of notes saying “I love Ryan Adam Zach Ryan 4-eva from me.

(Over the years, everyone wrote on the door so lots of things have been covered up)

In junior high, Katie and I were really close. In 8th grade, she wrote this in my yearbook, “Renee, You’ve been a great hoochie mama. Stay that way.” See…she was always funny, and had a way with words.

We sat together on the bus a lot and made fun of this dork named Michael who always wore sunglasses and over-gelled his hair. He was always trying to rap, but he was, like, the worst rapper ever. One day he came up with this hot number for me. “Yo, yo, you like a UFO.” A real wordsmith, that kid. So I came back with this sweet line, “Yo, yo, you look like a frickin’ monkey!” And he really did look like a monkey. Now, I didn’t rhyme, but I think I got my point across, and he didn’t have a comeback. He just turned around in his seat. Damn right, nerd boy.

Katie had a boyfriend in 9th grade named Curtis Moore. We called him Curtis Moore Sex. Ha ha. Awesome.

In 10th grade, we rode home from school with my mom because our school didn’t have bussing. We gave this kid named David a ride home too. He smelled horrible and would dance and sing to the dumbest songs on the radio. Katie and I always sat in the back and laughed at him and said mean things behind his back. In my yearbook that year, Katie wrote, “You know, you really get on my nerves (J/K). It’s been fun riding with David and you. The smell was great. And when he gets into a song, he gets down and dirty. And hopefully he’ll stop hitting on your mom.” Again, a way with words. I can’t help but laugh. I got my license that summer so we never had to ride with him again.

Katie was never much of a girly girl. She never, ever wore dresses. For homecoming sophomore year, she went to the dance in a dress, but changed pretty much right away into pants and t-shirt.

(Here is Renee in our dresses for Farewell Freshman...I don't have any pics from homecoming. I carried that coat in the front of me all night)

Katie was always a great friend. I could always count on her to stick up for me when I couldn’t stick up for myself. She was fearless and I loved that about her.

Katie was more of a partier than I was, but I always tried to pretend to know what I was doing, and not look like a total loser. But inside I was terrified because, well, I was a total loser.

Katie and I share a love of two amazing movies. 1. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (“Do you know him? Does he call you at home? DO YOU HAVE A DORSAL FIN?!”) and 2. Drop Dead Fred (“Snot Face, WAKE UP!”)

I hope you enjoyed this little stroll down memory lane and learning about Katie’s and my pure and utter awesomeness. I know I did. If my brain wasn’t fried from this stupid grad class I’m taking right now, I could probably come up with a few more stories. But for now, this will have to do.

(Thank you Renee SOOOOO much for writing this!!  I LOVED reading it all, because I pretty much forgot most of it!  I hope you all loved learning more about my weirdness and learning more about one of the greatest IRL friends EVER!!!)