Des

Des is in Seattle on a 5 week road trip and was nice enough to stop by and say ‘hello’. Great to meet you, Des, and thanks for the handshake.

I think she’s a fascinating person from her posts and I’d love to meet her in person!

Judith

One month ago today, I had to leave her and the kids at Walt Disney World while I traveled to San Francisco.

Given that you’re pretty sad when you have to leave WDW at the best of times, I can’t even begin to describe how sad I felt.

I miss her.

Even though I don’t get to The Great White North all that often anymore, I hope to have an opportunity soon.

Des is one of the 43Ters I really want to meet. Her entries and comments are bright, erudite and witty; her outlook on life is refreshing.

She has power sliding doors on her van!!!

Flirt is just as friendly and fun in person as she is on 43T! We chatted and laughed and never ran out of things to talk about. Then we laughed some more! I’m so lucky she came to Minnesota so I could meet her!

I admire the sentiment behind the original creation of southerngrace and her siblings. I am pleased to be allowed to adopt southerngrace and continue to spread the kindness in the form of cheers.

Making the drive from K3 to the North Side of Chicago is nearly always arduous; in this case, it was even moreso. A collision on the Dan Ryan Expressway backed up traffic for miles, and too much idling in the jam meant that I had to make an emergency stop for gas – in the heart of the city, at LaSalle and Ontario. Eventually I showed up at the restaurant where we were scheduled to meet up. Des paid for dinner for us all. I was very grateful for this, because I’d spent practically all my dinner money buying gas, and without her help I would have been stuck sipping water or something like that.

Des wore a lavender shirt, which I found out is one of her favorite colors. She has a very youthful skin, face, and body, but her eyes are absolutely ancient in their unfathomable depths. More than once over the course of the evening, part of me wished I could see what they had seen – and part of me emphatically did not. In the slight motions one normally performs while at a lengthy dinner and talk, she moved differently from the rest of us; she seemed more careful and deliberate, almost as if she didn’t know how to be truly casual. Maybe she did once but her body has forgotten.

In person, Des was not really anything like how I had imagined she would be. She challenged all of us, and clearly can be one tough cookie when she wants to be one. I had imagined she would be more carefree. I was mistaken. Online privacy is critical for Des.

Inevitably, the evening came to an end. I have no idea when, or even if, I’ll see Des again; I do hope it will happen, and the sooner the better.

This is really a story of how I met Des AND dwlt AND thexder, & got to see misswa again. But I’m posting the story on Des’s page because she took initiative to make this gathering happen!

She & dwlt drove down to Chicago today, & we met at the gallery where some of my portraits are in a show, & we talked nonstop until misswa showed up, whereupon we talked even more & contemplated the portraits & the wonderful pieces by other women artists in the show. Then we took off to a little family-owned-&-run Colombian restaurant, where we talked & ate & slurped tropical juices, & thexder finally emerged, embattled by rush-hour Chicago traffic but triumphant, whereupon we continued talking without letup & thexder had some supper & then we all had dessert: flan & brevas con queso (figs with cheese, which may sound weird but is quite nice).

Someone will post a photo or two soon, I imagine. It was a great evening, & I’m very thankful to have met these people I already thought very highly of. Thanks for coming to see us, Des—& thanks for supper & the ride.