My Friend

As you may or may not be aware, Jewels aka Julie aka Julietta (yes it is confusing and I sometimes don't know what to call her) is my friend. Jin asked if I would write about how we met & became friends, recognizing my inability/reluctance to reveal TMI or Too Much Information.

So here, in brief:

My friend Mary, aka Nutmeg, harassed me to join a gym that was supposed to opening soon. One year and half later, it finally did open. Along the way, Mary & I thought about getting our money ($400) back and cancelling our contract since we were so frustrated that it took so long, and were afraid we'd lose our money. Yet we hung in, and the gym finally opens.

We, or should I say, I start to go, doing machines & weights and not really seeing much in the way of results. I had gained about 20 pounds from where I wanted to be, from a combination of medication side effects, plus just a slow down in metabolism (or the tons of candy I love.)

One day, my cousin tells me that Barb, a girl we used to both work with, goes to the gym and is going to strip classes, and had I gone to these classes. I see Barb in the next few weeks, and she confirms that she has been going to the classes, and loves them. Not wanting to go by myself, I make plans with Barb, to make sure I have a partner in crime in the class. This continues to this day, with Barb & I getting in trouble constantly for talking during class.


I start to go to the classes, and find that I really enjoy them. The instructor Jewels, puts on a great class, explaining things in detail; I get a good workout and start to see results. (BTW she helped me lose my weight.) As an added bonus, she makes the class fun-- while some of her stories are a little outside my realm (ok a lot outside), she is very funny and quick witted and I keep going back.

As she has a tendency to "pick on" the students, I hide out in the back corner, to stay under the radar, so I thought. Our area of the room has been named Speakers' Corner. Speakers' Corner started during the times in class, when Jewels is doing movements, that we can never, no way no how, not even if we practice for the rest of our lives, ever do. So instead of doing the exercise, we talk, and she yells at us.

That plus the fact, that we didn't want to stay beside her and see ourselves & her in the mirror. She's downright intimidating the way she can move--it would've been like the S-Factor Do's& Don'ts--so we sat at the back in the corner. After a few classes, she starts to "pick on us." She gives me the stage name Kashmir. (not the toilet paper spelling fyi!)

One day, she asks if I would give her a ride home. I must admit that I was little scared or cautious of her. On the way home, she tells me a TMI story, and I'm thinking OMG, and I get very quiet. Thankfully, she lived not far from the gym. Lol!

One day in class, she's telling us about various names, stage and otherwise, that she used, and I asked her, Well what's your real name? She actually blushed and shyly said Julie. So I thought to myself, she's not so tough after all, and I saw her, not her personas.

Lo and behold, I did give her another ride home, and it became a bit of a routine. After a few months, we stopped at the local Tim Horton's for coffee on the way home. It was so uncomfortable--I said nothing, and she was a TMI Chatty Cathy. She actually asked me personal questions about myself...gasp--the nerve of this girl. I get quiet when uncomfortable, she said she gets chatty. Thank God, or we would have just sat there. She filled in most of the silences, and boy did she fill them in. My sheltered, Catholic Italian, anal-accountant ears, burned a few times.

Over the next year Tim Horton's evolved to Starbucks Kwaffee Talk, evolved to Mai Vi evolved to shopping, and visits, and daily phone calls, and a true friendship. Over Kwaffee Talk, I learned more about her, and she slowly learned a little about me.

Along the way, I saw her talent in creating the most beautiful beaded jewellery, and thankfully, I have qualified for the family & friends discount, or maybe the volume discount since I'm the proud owner of many of her gorgeous creations.

I've also seen her boundless capacity for caring, kindness, and empathy and admire her for it, especially in light of some of the things that life has thrown her way. She has offerred her help always, whether it's setting up an awning or swing in the backyard, making stew or spring rolls for us, coming over to visit, or escaping to Starbuck's when I'm down; or offerring her help in a way that 99.9% of the population would never do for someone. (not going there, as that's TMI)

So we're Thelma & Louise, Felix & Oscar, a bit of an odd couple on the surface, but she's my BFF, I'm so glad to have met her.