Holly Dei

A tribute to… Holly Dei Albright Wesselhoft – one of my sister’s classmates and one of my closest friends throughout high school… truly one of a kind!

1. Hilarious to me, often without trying to be!
2. Loves diamonds and knows the cut, color, clarity, etc… something that usually annoys me in women, but she’s so passionate about it, you can’t help but enjoy it – we used to have to stop at Tiffany's so she could pretend to be engaged and try on several rings! lol
3. She is an odd combination of Monica on Friends, Paris on Gilmore Girls, and Karen Walker on Will & Grace! lol
4. She’s fully passionate about everything she does, even if the passion only lasts a few days…
5. She wants to open a high-end restaurant called The Gallery where each room holds a different era of original paintings, and where small children are not welcome. She hired me to design the logo for it.
6. She also plans to open her own department store in NYC (whose name I cannot mention so that no one else will take it - lol) that caters exclusively to the ultra-wealthy and donates a portion of the proceeds from every sale to the charity of their choice. She is determined to convince me to move there and be her business partner, but I’m afraid there’s not much chance of that.
7. When she really sets her mind to something, she has the passion and drive to follow through on it!!
8. She set her mind during high school to getting into an Ivy League college, and she recently graduated from Yale University!
9. Has worked at Harry Winston and DeBeers Diamonds, both great jobs for her!
10. She once worked as a hostess at Red Lobster, and to this day, calls it “The Lob.”
11. She has a hilariously playful side in the midst of all her serious pursuits… as evidenced by our bizarre but funny trip to Chuck-E-Cheese where she played on all the kids’ stuff. We also once spent an entire Spring Break going to different furniture stores and trying out all their massage chairs, trying to talk them down to a certain price, even though we had zero intention of buying one.
12. She is 1/64th Pottawatomie Indian. Mark used to tell her to be careful not to get a paper cut, or she’d lose all her Indian blood! lol
13. Don’t bother getting into a debate with her on anything; you will lose… not necessarily because you’re wrong, but because she’s ridiculously persistent. lol
14. Memory:  Our traditional downtown carriage ride at Christmas time! (We only did this once, but have meant to do it every year, and still refer to it as our tradition!)
15. Refreshingly negative. Lol I don’t know what else to call it. She was real and called things like she saw them in the midst of a lot of fakeness and pious people at CHA. 

 16. She refuses to eat the green jelly beans. I just find that funny. =)
17. She’s adorably petite and cute. When she was in a relationship with a really tall guy, she was “Minipod” and he was “Megapod.” lol
18. She loves her unique last name (and the umlaut is essential). =)
19. The first thing she said when I called and told her about the friendship-ending letter from Josh was, “God, I deserve an award for listening to all this!” That still makes me laugh! lol
20. She loves to take naps, way more than the average person... I woke her up by flashing a camera in her face once… quite funny!
21. She’s a devoted and loyal friend and really cares about me… I didn’t take her advice to “build a wall around my heart,” but I definitely understand and appreciate where she’s coming from!
22. She loves the Celine Dion song, I’m Alive, and always turned it up and did a hilarious little dance to it in the car.
23. She’s not fake; if she doesn’t like you or doesn’t like what you’re wearing (or your lovely Charm & Luck purse), you’ll probably know it! lol
24. She loves to ask people lots of questions and really get to know them when she meets them… she once asked Troy what he wanted to be when he grew up, and her stunned speechless expression was oh so funny when he said (in all seriousness) “I really want to be a professional clown.”
25. She has a wonderful imagination, and I so love that about her. Examples: She wants to be proposed to on a yacht with fireworks; nothing else will do! We used to go hang out at the airport for no real reason, but we’d have made-up elaborate stories ready in case anyone wondered why we were there. We also went to Bass Pro Shop and sat and relaxed on their boats pretending to be on some fancy cruise… she also got stuck in a kid-size life jacket she tried on there, which was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen! =)  (I’m sure the workers really appreciated us.)  Anyway, cheers to Holly Dei!!