reach out and touch someone

I've just made contact with a woman I haven't seen since 1971. No, not an old flame. She introduced me to a woman she worked with at a department store in Tallahassee. A few weeks later she packed her bags and moved to Atlanta to the mild consternation of my roomie, who'd been dating her. The woman she worked with became my wife and the mother of my four faithful readers of this blog. Leni, who introduced us, has never known until today what she'd done! She was amazed that I found her, and frankly so was I.

To put this in perspective, when I was a boy we moved from Tarpon Springs to Clearwater, about sixteen miles down the road. It was as if we'd moved to the dark side of the Moon. I lost all track of kids I'd known in elementary school, partly due to lack of continuing interest but mainly because it was a long distance call back to Tarpon Springs and nobody had even dreamed of the Internet yet.

About 18 months ago I made contact with one of my best buddies in the Army, thanks to classmates dot com. That was cool because we haven't seen each other since 1968. This is cooler, because until today Leni was totally unaware that, but for her, I might still be looking for the right woman to marry and my four faithful readers might still be shopping the Earth for parents to be born to.

Dunedin Highland Games, 2005. 

Conni was one of ten nominees for Guardian Ad Litem of the Year, of about 200 Guardians Ad Litem in the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida. After hearing about the winner, we knew it was an honor to be nominated.  

The GAL of my dreams

No doubt about it, I am married to the gal of my dreams. She's also a "GAL" (Guardian ad Litem), a court-appointed volunteer assigned to watch over children from extraordinarily dysfunctional families. Tonight she received nice recognition from a non-profit organization that exists to provide support the State of Florida cannot provide, ranging from clothing and birthday cakes to piano lessons and summer camp. She was one of ten nominees from the two-county Sixth Judicial Circuit out of approximately 200 guardians ad litem. . .truly, an honor just to be nominated.

I was going to upload a scanned image of the certificate she brought home, but Blogger wants me to use Picasa and "Hello," the former being a bloated kludge and the latter being dysfunctional. ("Network unreachable.") So, if my four irregular readers want to see it, you know how to ask.

Rest in peace, Terri and the Pope. Give it a rest, CNN

Terri Schiavo has finally gone to meet her Maker, where she should have gone in 1990, crossing the threshhold just ahead of Pope John Paul II. I hope they had a nice chat in the waiting room. Meanwhile, CNN seems to believe that the only acceptable break from the trial of Michael Jackson is an unrelenting death watch - first for Terri, then for the Pope, and now we have to endure this until the funeral on Friday. Saturday will be comic relief in the form of the "royal" wedding in England, after which it will be more of Michael Jackson. I have never liked CNN, and this week is a good week to quit watching it altogether. Surely there must be more news happening in the world than what we will ever learn from CNN.