"Sounds like you went to see the quasi-musical again."
First, no, no one has plays on a Monday. Second, no, I rarely see plays more than once, due to the cost. Today was definitely something different, never done before!
"Okay, I'll bite. What'd you do today, sunshine?"
I talked with Andrew, face to face! For almost an hour and a half!! How very nice to be able to see him, and he see me, while we chatted like old times!
"Very cool! And did y'all do that on ZOOM?"
Nope! I'd gone on fb to post a cookie recipe on Sam's page. Shavon noticed that I was on and, next thing I knew, I got an invite to join her chat room. Say what? So, I clicked the bubble... and there was Andrew!!!
"That's different. I didn't know fb could so stuff like that."
Neither did I! Apparently, it's an option with their Messenger feature. I know I've been part of group messages with that, even initiated some group stuff there. Never had I ever seen that "ROOM" choice! I plan to make use of that some more. That was a fun experience! Oh, and I found out that latest stoopid Windows update knocked out my microphone.
"Damn. Then how did y'all talk? Sign language?"
Oh, please, not hardly. I know a little bit of that, but not enough for a conversation that was an hour-plus. No, when I realized it was a "You're Muted, JoAnna" stage, I whipped out my big 4"...
"LOL! Nice riff on the Aerosmith song!"
... and rang him up. Thanks for getting the joke! Andrew would have liked that, too. Double entendre is the name of the game for him! Me, too, for that matter.
"Yeah, y'all got along so well from the get-go because of your similar taste in humor and love of puns."
That's right! He was trying to figure out how long we'd known each other and he asked when it was that I got my doctorate. He thought it was 1992. Nope! As I told him, that's when i got married and left FSU, to write the dissertation at home in Savannah. And, just as I'd been warned, Dr. Mandelkern didn't like that, so he made me write that book four times before he finally accepted that I was serious about that PhD. That meant I finished in 1996. I'd started teaching part-time at Armstrong, bouncing down to Tallahassee for breaks and summers.
"Yeah, I remember all that."
For real. But that timeline puzzled Andrew. If I'd started grad school in January of 1988, that meant he would have only known me for 9 months before he left. He was sure he'd known me longer than that! That's when I reminded him that we'd worked together the two summers before, when I was there for the Undergraduate Research Program. Oh, yeah, that jogged those brain cells!
"Hey, that's one of the signs of getting older..."
... true that, but he's just a year younger than me! Which is odd every time I think about it, because I've always regarded him as an older brother. Right?
"I hear you."
So, we talked of his work once a week with Habitat For Humanity, as he knows I've been a HopeBuilder for some few years. And we spoke of the walrus and the carpenter, as well as those crazy twins Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, and that sword-wielding unicorn and pipe-smoking caterpillar and Cheshire cat.
"That sounds like an odd topic of conversation for y'all."
Well, he started it. (smile!) He asked what I've been doing and I started talking about going to plays, rattling off the ones from September and on. That's when I got to the one about Alice... and he told me he'd just recently re-read that book! So I'd discussed in detail how different the play was from the first act to the second one, and together we figured out why. Act 2 was totally from "Through The Looking Glass"!!! That's why it had so many fanciful characters, including the Jabberwocky. I'm so glad he was able to clarify that for me!
"That's strange that the two books were combined for the play, but the play only referenced one of them in its title."
Hey, I guess it's a case of writer's prerogative. N'est-ce pas? I'm not French and never studied that language in school, but I really love that phrase and tend to pepper my blogs with it.
"So I've noticed over the years. I think it all started with the Francophone Film Festival. I don't know that you used the expression before that."
Possibly. I honestly cannot say, but that's as good a guess as any.
"So, what else did y'all speak of?"
Photography, of course. He doesn't officially have a fb page, but he frequently logs into his wife's to post pictures of birds. He's very good at catching them in action shots! That's quite tricky. I know, because I try and sometimes get lucky. Oh! Guess what else? He asked about my Periodic Table patent!!!
"How very cool! I know you had approached them about investing in it, but they had not. He was part of a lot of patents when he worked for Exxon in Indiana, but mostly that was his name with others in the lab. Those patents were all owned by the company and handled by its lawyers."
Yes, and he had cautioned me that it might well take years to come to pass. Anyway, he asked, so I let him know the utility patent was finally approved! I also told him that the only response I've had from companies that would help market it have been from scam artists, which is very sad. That, naturally, led to talk of other financial scammers and his mom was hit by one of those, too. We then talked about how folks are selected by those ne'er-do-wells and it seems to come down to ageism, but I think that's not the only factor. I suspect they also check for criminal records. They would be less likely to pull those scams on folks who'd done time in jail or prison.
"Possibly, but I don't know if anyone has looked into that angle. I know several folks who have been prey to those financial scams and they all seem to be in the over-60 age bracket."
Yeah, I know. Anywho, time to cut this short. "Shakespeare & Hathaway" is about to come on and I'm finally going to be able to watch it! I seem to have lost track of this mystery's time slot, but I've made a note of it. Gotta go watch Lou and Frank solve crime!
"Have fun!"
No comments:
Post a Comment