Well, Hello Dolly!

Yesterday, I was talking with my life-long friend Dolly and she said,

"Hey Paula, you should have seen me last night. I wore a cheetah print jacket and felt like a cougar, until I fell off the bar stool and realized I was Lindsey Lohan."

And with that, I realized it was time to write about Dolly.

One of the things you have to understand in order to understand the magnificence of Dolly is that from the time she was a child, she was obnoxiously beautiful. Long wavy blond hair, green eyes like a cat, porcelain skin that never got pimples, and the body of a runway model. She's always reminded me of a character from "The Great Gatsby".

Sometimes, I get the feeling that Dolly found her beauty more of a hindrance than a blessing. Because here's the thing, Dolly is also smart and funny and she's always made me laugh.

Hanging out with Dolly is fun to this day. She is timeless and has always made me feel like I was funny and brilliant. She loves music, and has been to hundreds of live concerts. She is still a party girl, and always open to an adventure, of which, through the years, Dolly has had many. That's why I wanted to introduce you to her, she's got the great stories.

Once, when we were teens, Dolly looks at me and says,

"Hey Paula, let's go camping".

To which I replied "awww, hell noooo....".

See, I've always hated camping. So there, I said it. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was faking that I like camping when I was first dating my ex-husband. That fib haunted me for seventeen years of outdoor living hell.

Back in the day, going down to the Red River Gorge and camping in the primitive was what all my friends were doing. Not me, buddy. You could fall off a cliff, and nature is scary, plus it feels like being poor, which I know because I am poor. To this day, I've never been to Red River Gorge.

I could tell, that on some level, Dolly was going to make me go camping no matter what. She thought she could "convert" me. For her, I thought, what the hell, the party always follows Dolly anyway, and dammit, I love a party.

It's about five pm by the time Dolly has me talked into going camping. We've compromised on starting small, by going to Big Bone Lick, which is closer. Honestly, the name just cracked me up.

Dolly assured me that all we needed was a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and two sleeping bags. She was trying to discredit my "camping is way to much work" defense.

So, off we went, in Dolly's car, heading south at sunset to Big Big Bone Lick. Now, I love a ride in the car, especially because none of my friends drove yet. That was the funnest part. By the time we finally got to the camp ground, it was dark, and everybody else had tents and campers.

There was Dolly and me, and our loaf of white bread and peanut butter, ready to lay out our naked sleeping bags for the night.

I looked at Dolly and said "Oh hell no!"

Dolly looked around, at all the tents and campers, and our two little sleeping bags, shook her head and said "We're out of here. I know a better place."

So we packed up our stuff, you know, loaf of bread, etc. yadda yadda, and got back into the car. Dolly did a u-turn, squealing tires and all, and off we went to the "better place".

Dolly was good, I have to give her that. We ended up at a Holiday Inn, and camped out over night in a hotel room. It was the greatest camping experience of my life.