Today was a very educational day, in all of the most worthwhile of ways. I feel more evolved now as I prepare for bed than I was when I woke this morning. Some knowledge was expected. I had my weekly call with the boss, and got to ask a lot of questions about financing and preparing offers that I had saved up from the weekend. The advice he imparted was valuable and will serve me well in the very near future. I also had a teaching moment handed to me by my breakfast. We went to my favorite local restaurant, and my mother ordered more than she could comfortably consume. I went the other direction, only getting a couple small sides to go with my tea. So when she said, "Do you want to finish what I have left?" I was four grapes and half of a piece of bacon into it before it occurred to me that these items had touched the pain perdu on her plate. I spent the rest of the day regretting my oversight, cramped up in a chair, unable to complete the last item on the "Colorado Experience" list. You know the one I'm talking about, and it never happened. Next trip, maybe.
Mr S-P arrived at one of the primary destinations for his long cross-country jaunt last night. He arrived in the small town in New Mexico where we still own and rent out property, to check on the condition of it. Neither of us had seen this house since we left it five years ago, and it showed some wear and tear. The inside held up well, where our tenants had cared for it conscientiously. The outside was not so fortunate. There was hail damage on the roof, tree damage to the roof and fascia, tree deaths, overgrown weeds in the back, and peeling paint all the way around. At least we learned insurance will cover the roof issues. After he played landlord-inspector, Mr S-P ran an errand for me, and went to the small mom and pop shop I've mentioned many times in this blog. It was a gift shop and plant nursery where I learned from a master gardener how to care for flowers. The shop itself is a space like I've never seen anywhere else, with the main store in an old house (like 80-90 years old), with display space in and outside that winds around a maze of fixtures that makes the entire place feel as massive as a TARDIS. It's rustic and interesting and cool. And all over the property are stray cats, plus a darling store cat named Rascal who I have missed dearly. She was there, posing for Mr S-P. My old bosses sent their hellos. I wish I could have been there.
But the most fascinating part of the day was at the end of it. I met what we think is a second cousin once removed. That's our guess, anyway. His grandfather and my great-grandfather were brothers. Until he was around 9, he lived in the same small town in Oklahoma where I grew up. Then he and his family moved to Denver, where he lived for decades. Right around the time my kids were babies, he moved to Boulder, so technically he and I were in the same town at the same time and didn't know it. And now he lives in the same town where I moved last year. He has spent much of his time over the last 30 years or so being a life coach, and darned if he didn't impart a lot of wisdom to the both of us, mom and I, over the course of dinner. He also told endless entertaining tales of family history, including one that he called the "Parable of the Flaming Rabbit," that I'd love to share if it were my own story to tell. I hope that now that we both know that we both live here, we will get a chance to be better acquainted very soon. I suspect I could learn a lot from him.
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