A Somewhat Obligatory Post Concerning Daisy

As far as I can recollect, I have only mentioned Daisy once in passing, which in retrospect is quite shameful. I shall do my best to remedy.

It can be difficult to tell the type of impact a person is going to have in your life when you first meet them. However, I knew when I first met Daisy that I wanted to force her to be my friend for two seemingly shallow reasons:

1. She is British
2. One of her favorite movies is Little Women

Poor Daisy. She never could have suspected there to be someone like me ready to pounce. And pounce I did. In Sunday School before the commencement of the fall semester, we went about the room introducing ourselves (names, hometowns, majors, favorite movies, etc.). I rarely pay attention to these paltry introductions because it is impossible to tell if you'll get along with someone based on information as simple as all that. But of course Daisy stood out for the two previously mentioned reasons, and then I accosted her in the hallway. Our first conversation went a little like this:


"Hi, I'm Kelly! What's your name again?

"Daisy."

"Nice to meet you! You're from England?! What city?!"

"Oxford."

"Oxford! I went there a couple years ago! I love Oxford!!!!!"

"Oh, cool."

As you can plainly see, I won her over and we were great friends at the very start.

From then on I made sure that Daisy was a staple in our small group of friends (probably against her will), and I made her talk to me about England for hours and hours whenever I could (again probably against her will). And of course I impressed her with my very-authentic-sounding British accent. Daisy said I could be a native. Did we ever doubt that fact?

But before I knew it, I was saying goodbye to Flagstaff in order to do my semester of student teaching at home. Saying goodbye to Daisy was hard, but saying goodbye to everyone was hard. However once I left Flagstaff, Daisy and I texted each other all the time (maybe I am one of those people who are easier to love from afar...), and she became more dear to me. I began whooping her at Trivia Crack, and she in turn continuously slaughtered me in games of online Scarbble.

Daisy is wonderfully observant, kind, and logical because of those astute observations, and thus a perfect confidante and counselor. The sort of friend I am always in need of. On one of my random visits back to Flagstaff, Daisy and I stayed up until 4:00 am discussing everything we could. It was becoming more apparent that Daisy was becoming a true. We then felt the need to make a list of things we would do and see in England when I go for a visit in 2017.

As wonderful as it all was, we did hit a rocky patch in our friendship when Daisy said she didn't like Tim Curry. I very nearly never spoke to her again, but she agreed to watch Oscar and all was made right. In March I forced Daisy to ditch her classes and come with me to Utah for my spring break. The true test of friendship is through a road trip, and Daisy passed with flying colors. Then on a whim, I decided Daisy and I should be vegetarians. We lasted a month. After I graduated (which Daisy attended without question), I coerced Daisy to come home with me to spend her last month in the United States. I was worried being in rural Arizona would bore Daisy to tears, so we made an extensive list of things we needed to do.

Daisy and Kelly Bashing Around (A Somewhat Unreasonably Long To-Do List)

• snow cone shop
• tour of town
• make cupcakes
• Eva's in Snowflake
• Pitch Perfect 2
• fly kites
• picnic at city park
• HS choir concert
• read Harry Potter
• watch Sense & Sensibility
• play Scrabble
• "to watch" list
• read Tess of the D'Ubervilles
• read The BFG
• book club: The Thirteenth Tale
• trampoline: sleep on it
• sort out Daisy's luggage
• build a fort
• make friends (does Tyson count?)
• outdoor garden tea party
• giant outdoor Scrabble
• BUBBLES
• make bow pillows
• make vlogs
• our novels/book
• parenting, animal groupings, etc. 
• Spamalot
• mocktail party
• teach Daisy to note-take
• cow tipping
• play with Daisy's hair
• Battleship
• nighttime walk
• daytime walk
• graveyard
• Catholic cemetery
• stuff for KB's classroom
• playlists
• El Cupido's 
• The Badger of Honor
• The Howes Cup
• El Camino
• Kneaders
• J-Dawgs
• Far from the Madding Crowd
• tour BYU campus
• book Daisy's flight to CA
• hang out with Holly
• Ikea
• Hires in SLC
• SLC mall
• road trip CD
• teach Kelly Pithead
• Cheesecake Factory

 But mostly we just stayed up really late talking or watching episodes of Modern Family and Parenthood. Through it all we talked freely of our families, our childhoods, movies, books, music, our friends, our aspirations. And my parents and I dragged Daisy along with us wherever we went, to weddings, bridal showers, missionary homecomings, graduations, you name it. Daisy was somehow unfailingly patient. She put up with my rants, my sour moods, my emphatic opinions, my indecisiveness, my spontaneous tears, my need to sing all the time, and my bursts of obsessing over England. She even let me pull out my journal from my trip to England where we found this little gem:

Monday, 27 May 2013

We went to church with a ward in Oxford yesterday morning, and of course it was pleasant; however, there were a few too many Americans in the ward for my taste. Also some of the young single adults were supposed to come to our hostel to play games, but did anyone show up? No, of course not. For some reason, all young single adults in the UK hate us. 

Guess who one of those Oxford YSAs was? Our one and only Daisy. I had completely forgotten about that day, so couldn't really be upset about it. Daisy and I decided that we are both so anti-social and grumpy in group situations that we probably wouldn't have talked to each other that day anyway.

For our last week together, we once again jaunted up to Utah in order to spend my birthday with Lynnette and Holly. We spent a couple days with Holly in Cedar City, stopped in to see my Aunt Marilyn in Holden, and crashed at Lynnette's the rest of the week. It was a week of utter mayhem visiting as many people and places as possible, but Daisy was a champion. We then did a marathon trip from Provo to Mesa where we roller-coasted through bouts of silence-inducing exhaustion, giddiness, and delirium during which we sing-screamed along to "One Day More" from Les Miserables. I feel it is a sure sign of true friendship if you can weather all those different moods together in one single car ride. Also we have decided that Nevada is officially the worst state in the Union, and Las Vegas is abysmal. If anyone was wondering our opinion on that regard.

What I am really trying to say is that Daisy has become one of my greatest friends over the past few months, and I am so grateful to have her in my life. Even if now our friendship mostly consists of random text chats in the brief window our different time zones allow. She has been both a fair and foul weather friend, and even though I based wanting to get to know her on her Britishness and our mutual love for Little Women, the friendship that grew from that is so important to me. Saying goodbye at the airport was the worst, but rest assured that Daisy and I will be bashing together again as soon as we can. Because I forced her to be my friend, and I'm going to keep forcing it as long as she lets me. And she will because she is just that sort of friend. One of the true and faithful sort.