guest post by Lauren

On my 26th birthday, Carrie ambushed me with a "Happy Birthday" message in every possible social network: text message, email, facebook message, facebook status, phone and blog posting. Unfortunately, The String Bean (my blog that has retreated to blog heaven) is no longer up and running and quite frankly, if I did a blog for Carrie's birthday on The String Bean, nobody would read it! Carrie asked me to guest blog on Ruby for awhile but inspiration has been lacking as of late. But this morning as I was beginning my morning commute (I've always wanted to say that...it sounds so mature and New York City), I raised my fist in the air and said, "By God, that's it! I'll guest blog for Carrie's birthday!!" I'm serious! So here I am! I don't have a scanner, an endless supply of old pictures, or the run of my office so this will be a slightly less colorful version. But I assure you, it will be from the heart.

Carrie and I "met" each other in 7th grade at Kilbourne Middle School. We really just scowled at each other- she was jealous of my boyfriend (I hope he doesn't read this because I'm pretty sure he knows I'm talking about him...HI JONATHAN!) I think the administrators at KMS got wind of our strong disdain for each other and literally put Carrie and I in EVERY class together the next year. And so it began. The lovely, sometimes abusive, very awkward, mostly sarcastic friendship of Carrie & Lauren. These are our memories:

-Even though I made fun of Carrie for being a cheerleader quite a bit, Ryan Ottobre, Gretchen Wendling and myself were fascinated by this dance Carrie was learning that went along with the YMCA. I'm pretty sure we worked on this everyday in all of our classes. And my mom says Kilbourne was a terrible school academically! Psh! I still know some of the steps.

-Listening to "All My Life" by KC & JoJo on the way to every track meet. Belting it out with the whole entire bus.

-Pretty much the whole trip to Carrie's lake house. We purchased the Jordan Knight CD (yes, I believe he was a member of NKOTB) and listened to the same song the whole trip. Well, that and "Domino" by Van Morrison. I don't know how her parents didn't kill us. Carrie and I stayed in the pop up trailer and decorated it like we were staying there for months. After dinner, we would retreat to our oasis, turn on the string lights, and write love letters to our respective boyfriends while listening to Boyz II Men. I'm pretty sure we practiced reading the letters to each other.

- The great rafting trip of 1998. Carrie and I went to the cottage in Michigan with my parents, brother and his friend. Each group that had rafted down the stream took about 45 minutes. It was our turn. We set off and immediately removed our life jackets- God forbid we get tan lines! Shortly after, we noticed our raft deflating. It started to wrap around us but we didn't seem to mind. Carrie taught me a song from The Newsies and we began singing it in a round. We were so concerned with our sound that we didn't notice the current had picked up and we were boundt o crash into a pile of sticks. We slammed into the pile and our raft wrapped around us and pulled us underneath the sticks-into six feet of freezing cold water. Thankfully, we popped up and spent the rest of the trip retrieving the oars, life jackets and flip flops. It took us about four hours to get down the stream.

- HALLOWEEN SOPHOMORE YEAR! God, what were we thinking??? And why did our parents let us do that? Probably so they could confirm that we weren't getting any. Carrie and I went to a thrift store on High Street and purchased fairy outfits & wings. I believe tin foil halo's were involved. Folks, sophomore year of high school.

- Singing "Pardon Me" by Incubus at the top of our lungs, in the Cabriolet, with the top down and the heat blasting in the middle of winter.

- Picking up Carrie's senior pictures. Enough said.

- Carrie getting kicked out of yearbook senior year.

- Finding a case of beer behind the bushes at Harrison's on New Years.

- The Ohio State vs. Michigan game!

I realize a lot of these are repeats from my birthday blog but what can I say, they are great memories. Carrie is one of the reasons I am so thankful to be back in Columbus. She truly is my best friend and the most amazing woman I know. Here is to 14 more years of friendship and getting a little crazy tonight. Love you!