Feeling Fine

Totally could have spent the day on an airplane. No problem.

But, we've got a few bonus days to visit and I'm going to try to get out and about and have some of that fun that we weren't having all week while we were feeling crappy.

Today, we did the beauty shop thing, which is a standard for our visits: Drop Anonymama at the beauty shop (she's a twice-weekly-standing-appointment kind of gal), go get some breakfast at Starbucks,

then go back to pick her up and visit with "Grandma's Beauty Shop Ladies" while our family hairdresser (she cut mine from age 6 until I moved out of state) combs her out and finishes her up.

As we were leaving Starbucks, we took a detour across the parking lot because Peeper wanted to see "That yewwow fing" which was one of those tall, skinny inflatable dancing guys. As we were about to leave, we stopped to wait for a car that was pulling in and I don't know what possessed me to actually look at the people in it, but I'm so glad I did, because in the passenger seat was my tenth grade English teacher!

I'd just gotten a quick glimpse and wasn't certain it was her, but I waited around and when she got out of the car I was about 99% sure, and when I called her name and she responded, of course, I knew that I was right. I introduced myself and we chatted for a few minutes.

She's in pretty frequent contact with one of "the big girls" (a group of women now in their eighties) from the summer camp I attended, and has heard various updates about me over the years, and I've run into her periodically as well - probably more frequently than any of my other former teachers. The last time we saw her was when we were all having breakfast together after my parents' fiftieth anniversary celebration, in the summer of 2007, and both Shrike and BabyBro's LovelyWife were with us, so we were both able to introduce them.

I was especially pleased to be able to introduce Shrike, since this teacher was one of two "not exactly 'out' but totally common knowledge" lesbian couples who were my teachers. Her partner was the honors and AP biology teacher, and they were two of the best teachers in the school, even though I didn't admit it at the time, because they were also two of the hardest teachers.

The other couple was a middle school English and reading teacher - I had her for "Reading Enrichment" which involved reading and talking to the teacher about your book, it was awesome - and our elementary school principal, about whom I've never heard a bad word spoken.

Unfortunately, both Ms. B., the biology teacher and Ms. G., the principal died many years ago, while I was in college, I think (the former of ovarian cancer, the latter of Alzheimer's), but Ms. C., the English teacher seems to be rocking along, and I will have to remember to ask Anonymama what's become of Ms. L., the reading teacher.

Anyway, Ms. C told me how beautiful Peeper is, and asked about where she got her blond hair, so I had an opportunity to tell her a bit more about how we made her. I also told Peeper that Ms. C. taught me about reading books (a good enough explaination of "English Teacher" for a three year old) and told Ms. C. how much Peeper loooooves to read.

No offense to anyone else that I spent time with, but I think that encounter was probably the highlight of my day.