Sooooo....it's no big secret that I'm the old lady of the EDE crew, so keep that in mind as I tell this little story.
Now, I'm not gonna go on with the old "When I was your age, I walked to school uphill, both ways, in a foot of snow" nonsense, but growing up there was no such thing as the internet, computers were strictly business tools and phones - with dials - were only for making phone calls and you could only go as far as the cord allowed you to.
Back in the day, you could have a pen pals, but for the most part, your friends were confined to your school or team or neighborhood or - as you got older - whatever bar you hung out in. (You're gonna have to trust me when I say it wasn't nearly as boring as it appear to be on its face.)
Fast forward a few...OK, OK maybe more than "a few"...years and suddenly, without a computer or smartphone, you might as well be living on a desert island, wearing underpants made of palm fronds and little more than that. More than that, if you'd ever hoped to run into your favorite actors or musicians or any other "famous" performer, you'd find yourself staring at every face in an airport or hanging out at stage doors. You certainly didn't find yourself communicating with them on a video call or walking up to them during a convention.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that keeping up with all the changes that have occurred over the past few decades is, first of all, no easy feat and second of all, damn surreal when you stop and think about it.
So there's the background...and here's the foreground:
I always said - and when I say "always," I mean always, since I was a teenager - that if I ever wrote my autobiography (presuming my life turned out interestingly enough) I would title it "So There I Was, Minding My Own Business, When..." You're gonna have to trust me when I say that, despite my life being interesting enough to write about (those of you who know "Bev" get it), my laziness knows no bounds. One of those "minding-my-own-business-when" statements would definitely end with, "I suddenly found myself wrapped up in a TV show fan convention."
Normally a really introverted, fairly shy individual, this convention has chucked me out of my comfort zone as quickly as you'd chuck a cup out of your hand if you found it had a giant spider clinging to it. I'm a behind-the-scenes kinda gal, but this con has forced me to interact with people - lots and lots of people - far and wide and, in a way that's utterly bizarre to me, I find myself feeling affection for a great number of them. No, fools! Not THAT kind of affection, geezus!
I'm just saying that sometimes, some of them are the best parts of my days.
Today, I had some running around to do, mall walking, grocery shopping, picking up a part I'd ordered for my motorcycle, getting gas, that kinda stuff. And lemme tell you, it's hot. it's 91 degrees with a Real Feel of 99 (that's 33 and 37 for ANY of you out there not from The States). No, It's not the 100 topping degrees they're seeing in the west, but this Buffalo for Pete's sake. We're much more accustomed to temperatures in the 20s and 30s than we are in the 90s. And, if I'm not mistaken, I don't think it's ever hit 100 here.
By the time that I got home I gotta admit, I was a teeny tiny bit heat cranky and not in the mood to put away groceries or really do anything more than strip down to my underwear and collapse on the couch. I unlocked my side door, grabbed the mail from the box, cursed my postal carrier, as she NEVER replaces the flap correctly and dropped my keys, wallet and the mail onto the counter before grabbing the grocery bags from the car....DAMMIT! My watermelon is still out there.
Anyway, I'd no sooner put the bags on the floor, than the Whitemare was rooting her giant head around in the bags to see if I'd brought her anything. Once I did the responsible thing and put the groceries away I grabbed the pile of mail. Imagine my surprise when I saw this:
I burst out laughing and immediately recognized the mark of one the flaming idiots I'd come to know. I swear to god, phonetically spell your name ONE TIME....
I grabbed a knife, slit the envelope and was greeted by this:
Made me smile, I gotta admit.
I'm not going to go naming names - I'm funny about tossing people out to the internet - but I AM going to say that I never dreamed I'd ever find myself saying that I have friends I've never met in person, but this person certainly has become that.
So, I guess I do.
And, I guess, it's pretty effin' cool.
Thanks to you guys who've forced me to make friends. There is a soft nougaty center I don't often tell people about who's "Aw Shucks"ing this whole thing.
And, a special thanks to the flaming idiot who just made my day.