Areas of Unrest

3 April 2005 - Reunions

This week, among other things, I saw several people I hadn't seen in years. The first encounter was Monday morning. I was at a work related conference all week and, when registering, found myself standing next to somebody I knew at M.I.T.. I hadn't seen him since I graduated, nearly 25 years ago. We only had time to talk briefly, though, as we both had a lot of things to do. The conference was, in general, quite hectic, as there were often several things happening at the same time.

Then, Thursday night, I got together with Mark and Karin for dinner. I had sent them email when I knew I was going to be in Orlando, and I was really glad we were able to work something out. I hadn't seen them in 10 years and they're going to be setting out for another trip around the world soon. We had an excellent meal at a place called Cafe Tu Tu Tango, which is a sort of international tapas joint. We ate mango duck quesadillas, tuna sashimi with seafood salad, gator bites with a spicy sauce, and cuban steak skeweres. Mark and Karin split a double chocolate calzone for dessert, while I had apricot bread pudding. There was also excellent coffee. Good food and good conversation (mostly about travel stuff) - what more could I want?

I came home Friday morning, quickly unpacked, called the office to see if there was anything really hot going on. Then I took a brief nap, showered and packed to go away for the weekend. This was the annual Virginia Storytelling Gathering. As usual, the drive west on a Friday afternoon was totally gridlocked through the Manassas/Gainesville area, but it picked up after that. There were all the usual story swaps, workshops and so on, but the real delight is just getting together with other tellers. And that's where the surprising reunion came in. Saturday morning, somebody I knew from Southern California walked in! I didn't know that Elaine was living in Virginia, nor did she know that I had moved here. We just kept exclaiming over how amazing it was that we were both there.

The drive back today was much smoother. I stopped briefly in New Market, where there's a very good used bookstore called Paper Treasures. I bought Bennett Cerf's Treasury of Atrocious Puns and a children's history book by Irving Werstein, who was a cousin by marriage. Then I tried to get caught up at home, though I still have tons of stuff to do. It's a good thing I don't have much planned over the next week or two.