my relationship with the symphony

on friday night i attended a wonderful pops performance by the grand rapids symphony. i love going to the symphony. over the past few years i've attended quite a few times. i've seen them perform mahler and elijah. i've enjoyed outdoor performances at the picnic pops. i've sat in the very front row, in the nose bleed sections and lots of places in-between. i've even been to a party at the conductor, david lockington's, house where everyone was invited to take part in a group floss using one long piece of string. it was a strange party.

though i've been to the symphony many times, i have never once paid for it. that is thanks to my friend jennifer. jennifer was my old housemate at 227 morris (227...like the show). jennifer lived across the hall from me for four years. our cats were playmates (or rather my cat annoyed her cat) and my kitchen sink would gargle every time she used hers.

jennifer is a character to say the least. she is a naturalist. she does not believe in doctors but rather in finding the strangest most bizarre home remedies harvest health has to offer. she once had me laying on her table with a flaming beeswax candle standing straight out of my ear, "to clear the wax", she said. she used to give herself liver and kidney cleanses which involved eating nothing and drinking only certain types of fruit juice which were rid of by her self-performed enimas. apparently this would clear stones. she saved some of her stones in a baggie and showed them to me. jennifer always had some crazy conconction brewing on her stove and she made homemade cat food for her cat. needless to say i was buying double the amount of cat food at that time since her cat wasn't crazy about the homemade stuff and my cat's food was readily available to him.

one year at tax time jennifer came into my apartment and declared that she had made a whoppin' $9000 that year. i wondered how she survived as i cooked up dinner for the two of us...oh.

jennifer never had many friends that she would see regularly. in fact, if i had to name her best friend i would have to say that it was the grand rapids public library. if she wasn't home i knew she was there. she always had stacks of books in her room ready to read, many of them natural health books. she rented movies and cds and tapes to learn new languages. bosnian was her language of choice. one time at 4am i heard some commotion coming from her apartment. i climbed out of bed only to find her JAMMING to some 80s hits cd in her apartment. she couldn't sleep, she said. i offered my condolences and told her to keep it down.

jennifer loves pretending she is in a different country. whenever we would go anywhere together she would say things like, "let's pretend that we're in italy," or "it seems just like we're in eastern europe." jennifer is never HERE.

jennifer is one of the kookiest people that i've ever met, she is also one of the kindest. she doesn't have a bad thought about anyone. and she was a good friend to me during some difficult times. she has taught me a lot about friendship and patience and...health! i enjoyed my years being jennifer's neighbor.

jennifer and i are no longer neighbors. she lives in lansing now where she is working towards her masters in esl. but this last weekend she was in town and she invited me to the symphony. you see, jennifer freelances for the grand rapids press entertainment section. she often covers the symphony and she has been inviting me along, and quoting me (!) for the last four years.

my relationship with the symphony is my relationship with this wonderfully unique individual. -SN

PS. after returning home from the symphony on friday night i witnessed a very blantant drug deal on my corner outside of my house. i SAW the little baggie filled with its "white gold." i tried so hard to remember a plate # but for the life of me...just couldn't. they got away this time, but i'm watching. and next time i'll have a pen!