Molli Squires!!!

I left Debbie's on Tuesday and headed for Daytona Beach to see my old bff, Molli! We were close for so many years back in my formative teen/twenties. She was in a band and I loved them, we had countless afterparties at her house called "Harm House" and made probably thousands of pounds of vegan food for traveling bands and friends who stayed around most of the time. She moved to Daytona a few years ago, and we somehow let ourselves fall out of touch.

I saw on her Instagram the other day that her mother had passed on at the young age of 58. I had met her mom before and thought she was sweet but also flighty and self concerned. Her post was tagged in Illinois, and I realized I was in Orlando, only about 90 minutes away from Daytona! I made a comment about how I was in her home, and she was in mine. She said, "No! I'm in Florida! Come over!!" I messaged her, and we planned to meet up on Wednesday.

I got a late start leaving Debbie's Wednesday because it was just so great to be with both Debbie and Sierra. We had a lovely time chatting and catching up in the morning, and Debbie made us these amazing waffles made from only egg and cheese and some kind of carb free flour. She mixed in diced ham and jalapeños to round two, and that was a slam dunk of an idea!! We lounged a bit, and then Sierra and I hit the road about 2 pm.

When I arrived at Mollis super cute house, she wasn't quite home from work yet. She said she was sorry that her house was probably barking at me. I told her no problem, there's a super cute old man cat that kinda looked like Jag, coming over to greet me. She replied, "It's Jag!" I said, "NOFUCKINGWAY!!" I got out of my van, SO FAST to go meet my long-lost buddy in disbelief that he was still alive! He was even sweeter than I remember and so cuddly, ready for pets and butt rubs, more like hip bone rubs, since Jag was skinny as a skeleton but was happy as a pig in mud. I was just so tickled. We had been amigos 13 years ago in the height of Molli and my friendship. He always chose me when I was at their house full of metal punks to sit next to and be loved by. I sat right down in the road and pet him while I waited for Molli to get home. It was a grand reunion! When molli pulled up, she was taking video of our sweet exchange and giggling out her car's window.

Molli pulled in and told me to park in the driveway. When I said, "What about Tim?" She informed me that they were in the process of getting divorced. I looked shocked, and she reminded me that we had a lot to catch up on.

Entering her home, we were greeted by Algernon and Freya, the same wonderful doggies she had in Illinois. Both are much older now and still just as sweet. She also has another dog now, Henry, a full bred pitbull with much training to complete still. Suki is still flaunting her little attitude around, like always. We hung out and caught up. Molli told me about all of the turmoil in her life recently. Most notably, her mother's death, her pending divorce, and finding out that her father, who raised her her entire life, was not actually her biological father. Her mom was 5 months pregnant when she got with Mollis life-long dad, and now Molli knows that all of her aunts and uncles her whole life have been lying to her. She communicates with her bio-dad, but it is still a strange feeling to her, understandably. Tim left and moved to Kentucky to live with Kyle in a place that doesn't allow pets, leaving Molli to care for 3 dogs and two cats all on her own. Tim does the social media for their company, Ritual Apparel, while Molli does all of the product creation, branding, packaging, shipping, and storage. To me, it doesn't seem like a fair split at all, and I have some major disappointment towards Tim because of it. Molli is an incredibly strong, resourceful, and smart woman, and I have no doubt that she will come out of this on the brightest side possible. I will be here and there to cheer her on and provide support in whatever ways I am able.

After our big catching up session, we watched Ali Wong's newest Netflix special called Don Wong and laughed our asses off until about 8 pm. I invited her to come to Mellow Mushroom with me, and we headed there. She loved it! I had some kind of habanero margarita that was just delightful, along with my favorite little Greek salad and small pizza with a side of beer cheese.

When we arrived back at Molli's house, she recommended a movie called Get Out. I turned it on and went outside to smoke some weed to help combat the nausea I was feeling from my antibiotic. I spent the next 2 hours, with my eyes glued to the TV screen. It was such an intense and riveting movie. Then, I fell asleep with Jag on the couch. I woke up in the middle of the night, uncomfortable from not moving to keep from disturbing Grandpa Jag. I saw that Molli had the guest sheets out, so I attempted to make the guest bed, but the sheet was still quite damp. I went back to the couch and had Jag lay on my chest to sleep.

When I woke up again Friday morning, Molli was slightly frantic and searching the house for Freya. We concluded that she was nowhere in the house and jumped into Molli's car to go and find her. This would end up being the start of an 8-hour search for Freya. I felt extremely guilty, as we were pretty certain she snuck out when I went outside to smoke, so there was no way I was leaving town until this was completely remedied. We went to two police stations, called countless vet offices, walked through animal shelters, and drove hundreds of miles in various search patterns, all within a few miles of her house. We took turns calling for Freya in the various ways that Molli called for her when she was being a "good girl." Molli had no voice since the day before and sounded very weird, like a boy going through puberty. The solution for that was we made a recording on Molli's phone of each of us calling for Freya for about 15 seconds total, and played it as loud as possible through her car speakers over and over again. We spoke with every single human that we saw outside. Several people thought they had seen a dog matching her description at some point in the day. We also talked to several characters experiencing varying levels of early morning intoxication. Around 2pm, hour 6 of the search, I suggested we whip up a lost dog flier and start distributing them on utility poles since several of the people we spoke to had said they saw her at some point. Maybe if they had seen the flier, they could have reached out, and we would have made faster progress in our goal to bring Freya home. I brought my laptop from the car and put together a basic flyer, and we went to the Ritual HQ to print them off and grab a stapler. Through this entire day, we never lost hope, we never quit, we stayed positive and even shared numerous giggles at our great mission and relentlessness to find success in locating Miss Freya. There was just no stopping us. Nothing could throw us off our course. We were going to look until we found her, whatever it took.

Molli drove, and I hopped out at each block with a flyer and the stapler. That was our system. We continued to ask each person we saw. At one particular pole, there was a black gentleman outside, and he confirmed that he saw Freya less than 30 minutes ago running across the empty field across from his house. I proceeded to get out and put up 2 fliers on the pole because of the way traffic was, and an angry woman came out of this man's house on her cell phone and aggressively walked right up to Molli's window and started yelling at her about being parked there. Molli explained that we were putting up fliers, and the woman fixated on me, walked up to me very closely, and was loud yelling at me about my being there. She was clearly strung out on some sort of amphetamine, and I was concerned for our safety with this volatile woman targeting us. I jumped back in the car, and the man corraled that woman back into the house, and we drove in the direction he said he saw Freya. We played the recording one more time and heard the man yell, "Hey!!" When we looked back in his direction, there she was! It was Freya sitting in the empty field looking for where our voices were coming from. Molli put the car in park, and we both jumped out and frantically called her name. It was a perfect Homeward Bound moment with her excitedly running to meet us, and we were both yelling with excitement. It was an epic reunion made for the movies. Molli was crying, and I was rediculously giddy. It was pretty cool when a young dude on a bike was rolling up right as this reunion was taking place and got to witness the climax of our real-life lifetime movie. He was so excited too and shocked when I told him we had been searching for 8 hours straight. We got little Miss Freya in the car and drove her home, where she ate an extra big dinner. We went to the Publix to buy all kinds of ice cream goodies to celebrate. Molli invited her new love interest, Joey, to celebrate with us! It was the best ending ever to the most stressful day ever. I don't even remember what we put on to watch that night. I was so tired from the lack of sleep the previous night I passed right out.

Friday, we got up and chatted until I left to meet my dad. He was coming to Ocala, FL, just 1.5 hours in the direction I was headed back to his house. I met up with him, and we followed each other home after eating at Texas Roadhouse in Tallahassee.Read more