Fuzzy Posters

One day during the summer before sophomore year, Casey drove up from her shore house in New Jersey to visit me at my home. We always jokingly argued about which was the “real” Jersey Shore– where I live (Spring Lake, Belmar, Manasquan) or where her shore house is (Sea Isle, Ocean City). I wanted Casey to see “my” shore. I remember that Casey and I randomly decided to go buy a fish together, since the one I had freshmen year didn’t last too long. We drove to a pet store near my house, and picked out a small orange and black fish with silver-ish streaks. We collaborated on names and decided on Cleopatra, since she looked like a sophisticated diva to us (somehow, this made sense to us). I remember us singing a 90s girl-group one-hit-wonder song called “Cleopatra” on the drive back to my house with the fish. A week or so later, after Casey’s visit, Cleopatra started swimming sideways and upside down. I told Casey, and I thought it was kind of cute but she thought something could be wrong with Cleo. Sadly, Cleo passed away soon after because of her odd swimming disorder.

This picture is from the night of Casey’s visit when we bought Cleo. We went to Wal-Mart and bought fuzzy posters and snacks, came back and watched a movie while working diligently on our posters. Mine was a moon with stars, Casey’s was horses. Every now and then we would stop and show each other our progress. I love this memory, because it shows how Casey could make any day fun, and always in ways that you wouldn’t exactly anticipate.

What’s funny about this is I had completely forgot about Cleo (since she was so short-lived) but remembered it when I was out with Kelsey, Janine, Cassie, and Marie recently and we were discussing our past fish histories (think we started off talking about Flava Flav). I remembered Cleo, and then remembered how I got Cleo, remembered it was with Casey, and then remembered it was the same day of the fuzzy posters. It’s funny how memories are all together in a web like that, and sometimes when you reach one, you can reach others from there.

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Date: Summer 07′