K-K-K-Katie, Beautiful Katie...

I can't tell you the number of times I heard this song when I was growing up, usually from my grandparents and their friends (since the song is from 1919!). Then when I started high school I went through a big ol' change (what better time for an identity crisis than age 14?) and started using my middle name instead. Which had absolutely nothing to do with the song, and is a story entirely unto itself.

What does have to do with the song, however, is that I have a wonderful friend named Katie, and I GET TO SEE HER TOMORROW!!!! I'm a teensy bit excited. And the song keeps going through my head over and over. I figured that as a prior Katie myself I could get away with giving her all of the Katie-things I use to get... but last time I wrote "Katie-did" in an e-mail to her, her response was, "Katie-oh-no-you-di'n't!" Which made me literally laugh out loud. But I still can't stop humming, "K-k-k-Katie, Beautiful Katie..."

Katie and I met the last night at Inspired in a mini-class... I just happened to sit next to her because there was a seat open and I'd been loving her hair every time I'd seen her the previous few days. As luck would have it, there was a CRAZY lady in our class. (She was the only crazy or negative person there; every other woman there was so cool that it was amazing. Donna Downey is like a cool-person magnet!) But I say that it was lucky that there was a crazy lady, because Katie and I laughed our asses off bonded over it and exchanged e-mail addresses. Then we started this back-and-forth exchange over e-mail that was really... well, crazy! Talking about all kinds of things, typing for an hour at a time about our pasts, loves, laughs, lives. I have to admit, when I met two people at Inspired who said they met via their blogs and are now best friends (even though they had just met in person for the first time), I thought they were kind of nuts. But now I totally get it, because I adore Katie, and she is one of my best friends, even though we only hung out for about an hour in person. When I went through a little crisis recently, she was right there with me, sending e-mails encouraging me and asking all the right questions and saying all the right things. What's better than that? Not much, I tell you!

And this weekend she is in D.C. with her family, and I get to see her tomorrow! I get to meet the famous Oliver who sent Kal these button flowers and then since everyone loved them on her blog he did this cool tutorial. Hello? He is definitely the coolest and most famous five year-old I know. And I get to meet her husband (Oliver's dad), too. But obviously I am most looking forward to seeing, yup, sing it with me: K-k-k-Katie, Beautiful Katie!