A Great Date Night!

Thursday night, Honey and I had the best date I think we've had in a long time! Allow me to explain why...

Thursday had been an incredibly chaotic day in my house, so when four o'clock finally rolled around and Honey came home from the office, I was very much ready for a night on the town with him!

I quickly changed out of my sweats and into my "Going Out" clothes and threw on some make-up (okay, I put the make up on in the car on the way downtown!). And we were off ("like a herd of turtles," as Honey always says)!

Once we got downtown and found a parking lot near the bookstore, we quickly parked and jumped out of the car -- we only had 35 minutes to eat and get over there for Tom Robbins' presentation! As soon as we got out of the car, this man was walking to his own and stopped to offer us his parking spot, saying, "I've paid for this spot for 24 hours but I'm leaving now and I don't need it anymore. You wanna park in my spot? I'll give you the receipt for your dashboard." HECK YEAH we want your *free* spot! He was so kind to do that! Not only did he save us $13 but he also proved that karma sometimes does pay us back in this lifetime!

After we moved the car and thanked the guy profusely as he drove away in his convertible Mercedes Benz, we stood on the corner to decide where we could eat in under 30 minutes. Immediately, I noticed we were parked across the street from one of me fave restaurants in LoDo - b.d.'s Mongolian Barbeque! We ran inside and I asked the hostess and our waiter if they thought we would be able to eat and get out of there in under 30 minutes. They both assured us it was possible and the waiter worked double-time getting us our drinks and bringing our bill as soon as we ordered passes through the BBQ line for two! Mmmmm. That place is so tasty! You get a bowl and a long salad-bar-type buffet of various meats (beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, tallipia, lamb, etc), veggies and rice or noodles. You pick what and how much you want, toss it in your bowl and hurry over to the heavenly Sauce Bar!!! I love sauces! Most of my favorite foods are just vehicles for the sauce associated with it! I chose a cup of sesame ginger sauce (Honey chose a mixture of peanut, kung pao, and teryaki sauces for his concotion of foods.) and then headed straight for the cooking area, where I handed off my bowl and sauce to one of several cooks who were all working around this giant circular flat-top grill. They tossed the ingredients in my bowl on there and used super long metal wands to stir the food around while it all sizzled and popped its way to being fully cooked! Five minutes later, they handed it all back to me in my bowl. Yuuuummmm!



Twenty-three minutes later, all full and scurrying quickly, we dashed across the street to the Tattered Cover.

Honey had gone down there on a lunch break from work earlier in the week to get us tickets to this event. He just had to buy Robbins' new book, then he'd get a ticket. Of course he bought two so that we could both attend. The ticket not only reserved us a seat in one of their auditoriums to see and hear Robbins speak but it included a number at the top, reserving us a spot in the line afterwards to get our books signed. Our numbers were 238 and 239. Ugh. I began mentally preparing myself for being there well into the night; possibly not leaving there until 11 or later!

We were just in time as people were still entering the auditorium. A short line had formed and the lady in front was checking tickets and their numbers on top. The dude in front of me gave her two tickets, saying, "I'm not using these extra tickets after all if you want to swap them with someone else." She took them willingly and when Honey and I got up to her next, she looked at our patheticly large numbers and swapped them out with the extras from that previous dude. We went from 238 & 239 to 28 & 31!!!!!! HORRAY! There was still a chance we'd get home before dawn!

We were amazed at how much great luck we had been granted throughout the evening, what with the free parking spot, the super-accomodating waitstaff at my fave dining establishment, and now this: a jump up from near the end of the line to near the front of it! Wow!!!!

His presentation was sort of short but very good. He's an extremely private man and he reitterated to us how there are no true biographical tidbits of information on him floating around on the internet or in print. He didn't explain why he liked to remain so private but, to be honest, we 300+ fans didn't care! Because here he was, right in front of us, reading his new book to us, even controting his voice for a particular character in the book. We were all honored just to be sharing the same air as him!

He was witty and funny and even a tad arrogant. He always wears shades, which he admitted was not for protecting his eyes after some complicated surgery he'd endured a few years ago, but only "cause they make [him] look cool!" HA! And that they did!

As I think I may have said before, Tom Robbins inspires me to be a better writer. After I've read even just a short chapter (no such thing) from any of his books, my own language changes and improves. I end up sounding just a little bit more poetic, snide and clever, too! When it was my turn to get my book signed, I told him just that. He didn't respond much at all. I think he may have grunted or something. I was starstruck and nervous so I didn't know what else to say! After he signed my book (even spelling my name correctly since a bookstore employee had walked up and down the line, getting everyone's correct spelling of their names so the author wouldn't have to think much), I skipped around the table and stood at his side for a quick photo op by my own awesome photographer (Honey!).

The lighting was poor and it looks a wee out of focus but we felt rushed and nervous so it's the best my photographer could get in the milisecond I stood by Robbins! Who cares, though!? I think I look pretty cool standing by him in his super-cool shades!

As we drove home, both of us drooping from all the excitement and the late hour (it was close to 10:30 when we finally got home and we're both usually in bed by 9:30 most nights!), we reminisced about the different editions and printings we had each had of his books over the years. We recalled seeing so many fans there with their personal copies of some of his older titles. Some even had multiple shopping bags full of old hard cover copies for him to sign! But I fondly remembered seeing one person in particular who held tightly to his older, smaller, mass-market-published copy of Skinny Legs and All. It plucked at my heart as I pointed it out to Honey and told him I used to have a copy just like his but mine was obviously very loved, much like the Velveteen Rabbit! It had corners of the cover ripped off, the spine had been deeply cracked in a couple of places (probably at poignant or favorite scenes in the story), sentences and paragraphs highlighted or underlined, and tiny little scribbled notes in the margins. Awwww. I adored that copy! Where is it now? you ask? I believe I may have loaned it to somebody over the years and just never got it back. That's so so sad. I've got a newer paperback of that, my favorite of all Tom Robbins novels, and it was my mom's so it's got some of her notes in the margins along with mine which I added probably the fourth time I read it. But it's just not the same. It doesn't have the history and love crammed into it from all those previous years of reading and soaking the story up!

Say, if you're reading this and you happen to have a copy of this book and you long ago forgot where you got it from and you think maybe it's just stange that you have it, all broken and highlighted...then maybe it's mine! Maybe I loaned it to you a long time ago and just never got it back! If it is, please let me know so I can get it back - I promise there will be absolutely no hard feelings or blame! In fact, you'll end up being my hero for reuniting me with such a treasure! If none of you have it then that's okay too. I can still sleep at night knowing that it's out there, floating between people who are reading and either loving or hating or simply not understanding it (it's about a Conch Shell, a Spoon, a Can O' Beans, an Old Dirty Sock and a Painted Stick that travel halfway across the world to pay homage to the ancient goddess Astarte! I mean, COME ON!). It's probably even more well loved than when I last held it and that's just alright by me! At least someone has it and is (hopefully) enjoying it!

A little while later, as I lay in bed deciding to commit at least one hour a day, five days a week, only to write, I remembered something short but poetic Robbins had said in his presentation when he described his own writing schedule in the same place every day: "Sometimes the muse comes and sometimes she doesn't but she always knows just where to find me!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P.S. You may have noticed (or not) that I haven't mentioned much about my cancer or side effects of treatment for a while now. Well, I just got really annoyed by having to run down a list of cold, dry facts to report to everyone, whether here or in person or over the phone. After reporting such information, no matter to whom, I always walk away feeling stunned and pretty depressed all over again. Bad thoughts creep back into my head and I end up doing more harm than good to my own healing energy. Just please rest assured that nothing has changed (besides my chemo cycles). I've had some rocking awesome days and just good days and some pretty low down and bad days, too. Sometimes I'm able to get chemo and sometimes I'm not. But overall I'm pretty damn healthy and that's all you need to know right now. If anything major changes, of course I will let you know as soon as humanly possible. I hope ya'll don't mind.