Happy Birthday Phoebe... I mean Al

Today is another birthday blog. It is Allison Hocker...oops I mean Allison Durand's birthday. Happy Birthday Allison!

Allison is yet another one of my Assembly Hall buddies. She just got married about three weeks ago, and I usually call her "Al". One of my favorite Al stories is when Nikki and I flew to Florida to visit Al for a long weekend when she lived in Daytona. She worked for the Daytona Cubs at the time. We headed out to a bar out on the beach one night, and were loving the fact that we had our feet in the sand as we had a few drinks. We decided that we were not likely to meet any potential "Mr. Rights" that night so we decided to play a little game and give fake names to anyone who came up to talk to us... what fake names did we use... we are big fans of "Friends" so we went with Phoebe, Monica and Rachel. I know I was Monica... we share the same anal retentive tendencies. Al is blond, so I think she was Phoebe. Not that I am a proponent of lying, but it was fun being a bit mysterious that night. Of course after a drink or two the real challenge was trying to remember what every one's new name was.

I don't get to see Al all that much, but she is one of those friends that you can just pick up right where you left off... whether it was last week or last year. I love those kind of friends.

Al is a Cub fan, but she has had a forever long crush on STL Cardinal, Rick Ankiel. When she got a chance to meet him at Winter Warm Up she couldn't speak to him, just said thanks for the autograph and moved on. She was so disappointed that she couldn't speak that she went and bought another autograph ticket for the next day, with the express purpose of speaking to him this time. She got all flustered again and couldn't talk.. all she got out was "Blue would be wonderful" in response to Rick's question as to what color marker he should sign with. I wasn't there to witness all of this, but have heard Nik tell the story a million times.

Al, you are the best! Happy Birthday!