A love letter to Kate Bauer

Hey everyone.  Uh...I mean, Kate.  Hey Kate.  Thanks, Kate, by the way, for letting me stay at your fly pad this weekend.  It's totally sweet here.  Right now I am writing this blog from your den and I can hear the gentle murmur of you chatting sweetly with Jon from behind your bedroom door and ALSO I can hear Gilmore Girls Season 4 Disc 1 playing quietly in the living room!  You are the awesomest person I know for many, many reasons, not the least of which is that you purchased the Gilmore Girls Complete Series set, which comes in it's own fashionable carrying case AND includes two super-special booklets: one complete episode guide and one book of Gilmore-isms.  You are the luckiest girl in the whole world, and the prettiest.  Thanks for my super-awesome Natalie Dee T-shirt, too.  You are the best.  I am a terrible friend because I forgot your Christmas present at home and because when I realized that you left your Luke's mug at our old apartment I made a conscious decision NOT to return it to you, but to keep it for myself.  That makes me both selfish and mean-spirited.  It's a good thing I'm not a contestant in the Miss America pageant, because I'm not pretty enough to win a cash prize and I'm not nice enough to win Miss Congeniality.  Anyway, Kate, you are my star.  You are my true north.  For that you get my eternal gratitude and love and one of these days (if you're lucky), a steak dinner.  I wish that Novelty Golf & Games/the Bunny Hutch in Lincolnwood was open.  If it was, we could go there and listen to some great oldies tunes while eating soft serve vanilla ice cream cones with sprinkles and only half-trying to putt our multi-colored balls into the mouth of a giant skull.  When I'm with you, Kate, it doesn't matter if my magenta golf ball goes in the hole.  All that matters is that when we're at a carnival together we both KNOW that the only ride worth going on is the Tomb of Doom.  All that matters is that we both agree Neil Young would be a good name for my next cat, and that if you don't name your next pet Fred Savage, you will probably name it Tuna.  You are the greatest.  There is only one Kate Bauer on planet Earth, and I cherish her.  One of my favorite things about you is that you share a last name with one of my all time favorite TV characters--Angela Bauer of 'Who's the Boss?'  Although, she may have spelled it differently.  'Who's the Boss?' was my absolute favorite show when I was little.  I would race home from school, make a stack of buttered toast, and devour it while watching whatever hijinks Tony, Angela and the rest of the crew (that means you, Mona!) got themselves into that episode.  The silliest thing, though, is that even though you and Angela Bauer are practically related, you're nothing like her!  She's uppity and anxiety-ridden while you are down-to-earth and cool as a cucumber.  She has blonde hair which she wears in a sort of puffy lion's mane around her face, while you have gorgeous chocolate-brown hair that flows goddess-like (or Victoria's Secret Angel-like) about your shoulders.  She wears pirate-ish blouses with shoulder pads and sensible loafers, while you favor band T-shirts and Chuck Taylors.  ANYWAY...I love you more than I love a good meat-in-a-bag dinner, and you know me, so you know how much that is.  I just really wanted to thank you for providing me shelter for the next few days, because as you know, it's downright chilly outside!  You're a saint for letting me come a day earlier than planned, and you're a God for buying me a Thai-food dinner.  I loved my spicy bamboo chicken so much that I think I might marry it and take it to Aruba for a honeymoon.  Not only did you buy me a Thai-food dinner--you also let me have two cans of diet soda and AS MANY FUDGESICLES AS I WANTED.  I am in awe of you, Kate Bauer.  I guess there's not much more to say.  I'll just say this: if we went on Family Feud together (which is an impossibility since we're not blood related, and we will never be related-by-law since neither one of us has a male sibling) it would not be a good decision to allow us to be the two family members who play in the final round (the 'Fast Money' round) because we pretty much share a brain, and when the host (for the purpose of this example, let's say the host is Ray Combs (yes, before he was nearly paralyzed, went through financial problems, and eventually took his own life) because he was my favorite.  Boy, those were the days, huh?) asked us both the question: "Which food would be difficult to eat without teeth?" we would both scream without hesitation: "Any kind of meat, Ray!  Any kind of meat!"--but one of us would lose precious seconds because the other one had already given that answer (and that would've happened on every other question, resulting in extreme loss of question-answering time, resulting in loss of focus, resulting in panic, resulting in failure to supply points-winning answers, resulting in the loss of money).  We both know that the only thing that really matters in life (other than a comfy sweatsuit and a good book on a icy January day) is money.  I'm just saying: you get me, Kate Bauer, so don't hide that in a bushel basket.  I love you, Kate Bauer, and tomorrow while you're at work I'm going to make it my mission to find some rafters, climb up on them, and shout the way I feel about you.  So...be listening for that.