olympic !!

In between the raindrops I managed another training session. I wanted to find a better route to the restaurant on C street. The most logical way is the shortest, but the alley is out. For the winter anyway. So I tried 9th street. Direct and straight. One problem. No sidewalks. But I found out that, that does not matter for there was no traffic and walking on the street was safe. A few dogs gave me loud greetings, but they were all fenced in. I met one woman walking in the opposite direction and that was pleasant. We stopped and chatted for a moment and since I had walked up a mild hill for two blocks, it slowed down my breathing. Until the very last block I saw no cars, one woman and on top of the hill I had full view of our gorgeous Olympic mountains.

I parked my walker outside the the door again and when I sat down at 'my table' it felt great to sit down and the smell was promising. It smelled of pancakes and waffles and sausages. All the breakfast customers had left and I was the only hungry one there. Met by a welcoming woman who looked like she might be the owner of the place. There was a special offered and I accepted. While waiting for my waffle I leafed through a magazine and then a young couple walked in and asked if they were in time for breakfast. They sat down at the opposite side of the place. I was engrossed then, in either my magazine or my waffle when I heard   'Gertrud ' . I was startled and looked around and there was no one new in the place. The young woman then said ' I am sorry. I thought you were a woman I used to know whose name was Gertrud.' My name is Gertrud. But I don't .... She said 'my name is Sarah. You once helped me make a cat.'

At one time, maybe twenty years earlier, Sam had been in a play in Sequim. It was the ODD COUPLE. He and Sarah's father were two of the four poker players and Sam had felt the four of them needed extra rehearsal time and had invited them to our house on a Saturday morning. One of them brought his daughter, who was probably five or six. I wanted her to be happy so I asked if she would like to go down to the beach to look for a pretty rock. She was a lovely child and we had fun exploring. We found a couple of round flat rocks that were perfect for a cat. And so we spent a few hours in my studio gluing and painting and whiskering. When the men were ready to leave, Sarah had a cat.

Through the years, whenever I ran into Sarah she would greet me with 'I still have my cat'. The cat went to college with her. It went to music school with her. Sarah has a beautiful voice and is now a Jazz Singer and she is a beautiful human being. I have never run into her any other place than the theatre at night and here in a completely different setting, I did not at first recognize her. But she has not changed. She is still a beautiful human being.