The real highlight of the weekend for me was the day after T-day. No, we didn't get up at 4 AM to go shopping for bargains. We met a woman (Heather) for lunch who I'd met online through her blog. She had grown up just 10 minutes away from Karen & Howard's house, so when I'd posted that I was going to be in Philly for the holiday, she suggested a meeting.
She's the one who inspired me to write Life Afloat, long before she even met me (or rather e-met me); I'd been following her story for years. What attracted me is that writes about an ordinary life, being a grad student, looking for a boyfriend and worrying about her grades, but it didn't make for banal reading about on the level of "today I walked the dog and went to the mall." She's an excellent writer, but mostly what made her blog work was that she doesn't just record what happened, she's reflective and humorous about her events. So I figured if she could make an ordinary life into interesting reading, surely I could make our eccentric life on a boat interesting ... and the newspaper bought the idea instantly.
Meeting her in person was wild! Because her blog is so personal, and mine so public, I knew more about her than she did of me, so there was an asymmetry. But she was as articulate and thoughtful in person as she was on paper, so we quickly got into some great conversational topics and began to even out the balance of knowing each other. (Some of those topics are food for thought for future posts for me!)
After the meeting, she went on to visit some relatives and Dan & I to check out an Indian grocery store that we'd heard about. Wow! Basmati rice in 10- or 20-lb bags, an entire aisle devoted to chutneys, odd spiny green vegetables I'd never seen before and had no idea what to do with, rows (!) of curry blends and spices. We restrained ourselves since we knew we wouldn't have time to use much before leaving for Aruba at the beginning of January, but still walked out with 5 bags of exotic ingredients and plans to make ourselves a curry feast tomorrow. So okay, we *did* go shopping on Black Friday ;)
3 comments:
Hi Jaye!
I've seen you comment on other blogs, but I guess I never had the link to yours until you posted your link on Heather's post. So I just wanted to come by and say "hi."
Hi Jenn, and thanx for coming over. I've seen your comments too. I wondered about posting the link on Heather's blog (didn't want it to seem like I was trolling for readers for my own blog!) but at the same time, I'm really grateful to her for getting me inspired to propose my idea for writing the "Life Afloat" blog in the newspaper here in Annapolis. And meeting her in person was cool!
Silly girl! Of course I don't mind you posting your link on my blog! That's a huge part of how so many of us have found each other.
And you are really too kind - I was really touched by this entry.
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