Things I Will Miss About Living With Duchess

My roommate, Duchess, is moving out, and I will be sad when she leaves. Two years ago, when I needed a place to go, she was also looking for a new apartment, so she shared her "notes" with me on places she'd looked at, as I was having no luck of my own. I don't think I ever came out and specifically asked her if I could live with her, but the conversation sort of led that way, and she was super nice and welcomed me right in. (I just found the email conversation in my inbox. The subject title is simply "Hi," and it ended up being 35 emails long.) I never even went to look at the apt before I moved in. I just trusted her judgment and brought my stuff over. I was coming out of a kind of traumatic situation anyway, so being able to move in with her was an answer to my prayers. In my opinion, it has been a happy and fun two years. To commemorate that, I present this list of things I like about living with Duchess:

1.) She likes to cook. This comes in handy for many reasons. First, we have cooked many meals together. Before dinner group, she and I used to come home and say, "Ok, you have chicken, and I have some potatoes, so let's join forces and have dinner together." (This has happened with breakfast as well, when she and I would have "egg in a nest," as I call them, or as she calls them, "egg-toast thingies.") Another reason I appreciate that she likes to cook is that we can share basic ingredients like flour and brown sugar fairly. She is the one that taught me about keeping brown sugar soft by putting a piece of bread in the container with the sugar. When she first tested this and discovered that it worked, she exclaimed, "Good job, piece of bread!" Now, neither of us can say, "Good job!" to anyone without adding, "...piece of bread!"

2.) She laughs at my jokes. Duchess is a great audience. She makes me feel like I'm funny (I almost wrote, "She makes me feel funny." WOW.), and we've spent many hours of our lives being silly and giggling.

3.) She likes to eat at Chili's. And so do I! We're a match made in Heaven, especially when Heaven is serving Awesome Blossoms.

4.) She is our head roommate. This is a title I made up, but it's actually come in handy. When our home teachers come over, Duchess decides who prays, so we don't go through that awkward, "So...who would you like to say the prayer? Anyone? Anyone?" Also, she does things that no one else wants to do, like clean out the fridge! When this happens, I usually sit at the table and watch, occasionally piping in with comments like, "SICK!" or, "That's mine. Don't throw it away." If only I'd been there to prevent the time she mixed my refried beans with chocolate frosting...

5.) She has DDR.

6.) Our routines are compatible. She gets up later than I do, so I'm pretty much out of the way by the time she needs the bathroom. And if I am still getting ready, we can both stand at the counter and rotate between the sink side and non-sink side without even talking. (And as long as I'm talking about the bathroom, she doesn't leave hair in the sink, and she always puts the toilet lid down.)

7.) She's used to having little sisters. Now, please do not take this to mean that I think of Duchess as a big sister. However, she has younger sisters, so she's totally in her element when I call her and say things like, "I have to drive to the Conference Center tomorrow, and I don't know how to get there!" or, "I want to go to graduate school. What do I do?"

8.) One thing SHE is going to miss is the game she made up when I came home from the hospital last year. I had to be on oxygen 24/7, so I had a long oxygen tube trailing behind me wherever I went. When Duchess saw it leading down the hallway, she'd say, "Where's Carrie? Wheeeerrrrre's Carrie?" Then she'd follow it to wherever I was and say, "There she is!" Yep. It's THAT funny.

9.) We're in similar life stages. We both have our undergrad degrees already and are working full-time. We're (soon to be) both in graduate programs. We're close in age. I've had other roommates who are not in the same situation in life, and it's so much easier to get along with Duchess than it was with them.

10.) She is nice to me. She gave me balloons when I got into graduate school. She went to the store and bought me some crepe paper streamers when I needed something to tape off seats at a DC show. Um, and did I mention she let me move in with her when I had nowhere else to go?

I love this girl and will miss her when she's gone--but don't worry. We've got one more adventure up our sleeves before that day comes. ;-)