one of many reasons why i love cara

Here’s the thing about my dear and soon-to-be-married blog friend, Cara Ellison: She’s razor sharp but soft and silly too. It’s so endearing.

People who need to be the smartest person in the room, even if it’s the bathroom, bore me big time. They’re relentless in their need to show you up. They never relax. Their impressive (and boring) data banks are always “ON.” Big whoop, you know? So you’re smart. We get it. Here’s a Groucho nose. Wear it, okay?

The thing about Cara is she probably is the smartest person in most any room but she doesn’t need to prove it. She can be so silly and, personally, I just love that about her. She will go there with any premise. I mean, we’ve spit-balled zombie novels together, discussed if yard gnomes are sexy, done an hours-long sexorcism on a poor sexually repressed reader (with Sheila O’Malley), and just last week, she and I went down a crazy conversational rabbit hole on Facebook about a nutso bridesmaid dress she posted.

This one, to be exact:

The whole conversation devolved into swapping endless Gone with the Wind references. We both went mad with it and, frankly, I wanna go mad with it all over again!

Here’s the conversation:

Annette: OMG. LMAO!

Cara: I know, right?! What kind of horrible bitch would force her friends to wear this? Besides me, I mean. : )

Annette: Aside from you…no one I’d know, for long anyway. 😉

Cara: LOL! It’s just so hideous. I can’t imagine anyone thinking that this is the perfect dress! So awful.

Tracey: OMG. It’s Hello Scarlett.

Cara: Hahah! It is! Maybe a nice pink bonnet will really complete the ensemble?

Tracey: Rhett would NEVER approve.

Tracey: And she’d end up slapping him. It would be kind of awesome, actually. You could write a whole short story just from this dress. I DEMAND YOU DO IT.

Cara: I shall never be without my pink Hello Kitty dress again!

Cara: I might have to now. It is so miraculously inspiring. I must know exactly what the creator was thinking when she brought this lovely article of couture into being.

Tracey: After all, tomorrow is another day with Hello Kitty!

Cara: “This Hello Kitty dress tis the only thing worth fightin’ for and dyin’ for, Katie Scarlet O’Hara, because it is the only thing that lasts.”

Tracey: “He went out and shot dat po’ Hello Kitty dress, and, for a minute, I thought he was gonna shoot himself.”

Tracey: “The only thing I’m afraid of is they won’t hang you in time to pay the taxes on my Hello Kitty dress!”

Tracey: I have a problem. I can’t stop.

Cara: OMG you win the internet! Please don’t stop, I’m laughing so hard.

Tracey: I am now actually imagining what the taxes would be on a Hello Kitty dress. At LEAST 300 dollars!

Jessica: There is a certain … something … about it that screams “whiskey and Ambien” for the bridesmaids lucky enough to wear it.

Cara: It has to be that much. Especially with all the sparklies.

Cara: GWTW is my favourite book and I’m suddenly drawing a blank on it – you’ve totally owned this meme.

Tracey: And now I’m imagining Scarlett showing up to that Yankee prison wearing this Hello Kitty dress and begging Rhett for the tax money. I seriously have a problem.

Tracey: It’s one of my favorite too. 😉

Cara: Jessica, I love that imagery!

Jessica: Well now I have a deranged Fushia O’Hara prancing around in my head thanks to you!

Cara: Tracey, oh yes, instead of the drapery dress, this would have been much more effective. Yet I do wonder if Scarlett was wearing it when the old foreman with his new wife (the loose woman) came to Tara if things might have gone better for her. She’d rip off a ruffle, fling it in his face, and say, “That’s all of my Hello Kitty dress you’ll ever see!”

Tracey: Hahahahahaha.

Cara: Careen: “I guess a things like a lady’s Hello Kitty dress isn’t important anymore…”

Cara: Sue Ellen: “She stole my Hello Kitty dress! It was mine, I was going to marry it, and she stole it from me!”

Tracey: HAHAHAHAHA! “What’s my little lamb gwoine wear?” Scarlett points to Hello Kitty dress. “Oh, no, you ain’t!!”

Cara: LOL! Omg, Yessss!!!!

Tracey: “What’s that rustling I hear, Mammy?” “Why, Mista Rhett, that’s jes the Hello Kitty dress you done got me.”

Cara: I was thinking about that one! You got it though. Damn, where is Sheila O’Malley? She needs to get in on this!

Tracey: Yes! We need our trio!

Cara: I love your mind, Miss Tracey. : )

Tracey: Ditto, my dear.

Cara: Why, if I tell my Hello Kitty dress that I love it, it won’t marry Melly!

Tracey: Hahahahaha!

Tracey: “I can’t go all my life waiting to catch you between Hello Kitty dresses.”

Tracey: I can’t stop giggling over how stupid this is. It’s out of my control.

Cara: OMG that last Rhett line is masterful! I know, it’s totally dumb but it is also awesome.

Tracey: I have now mentally replaced every fabulous Scarlett gown with this Hello Kitty dress. At the Wilkes’ barbeque — in Hello Kitty. Mourning at the Atlanta ball — in Hello Kitty. Going to Ashley’s party — in Hello Kitty.

Cara: Marrying Melly’s cousin (suddenly drawing a blank on his name), Hello Kitty dress.

Cara: Knitting with India and the other women: Hello Kitty dress.

Tracey: Charles Hamilton. Put HIM in a Hello Kitty dress.

Tracey: Opening scene of the book, on the porch with the twins … in a Hello Kitty dress.

Tracey: “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by the charm of her Hello Kitty dress as the Tarleton twins were.”

Cara: Good lord. You’re beyond awesome.

Tracey: Or beyond help …..

Cara: We have a long history of Internet awesomeness. (I believe she is referring to our above-mentioned sexorcism of ’09. We need to do another one.)

Tracey: That we do, my friend. That we do. 😉