So …. about that meeting. I’ll post more later, when I’m done penning my Tony-Award-caliber kiddie play.
But I dash this off now, mentioning a few items:
1) I was early.
2) Joey, who has never, ever been on time in the 15 years I’ve known her, was even earlier. So God bless ‘er. That seemed promising.
3) We met outside, at the place I suggested — The Japanese Tea Garden. It’s near the pond, but not too near, you see. With tea comes civility, no?
4) It was 10:30 a.m. I arrived with sunglasses on, but there was no need for them under the table’s large, sheltering umbrella. Momentarily though, I considered leaving them on, hiding behind their dimness. But I pulled them off as I sat down. I didn’t want to create a barrier between us.
5) Joey also had her sunglasses on. Joey kept her sunglasses on.
6) Next to our meeting spot, there is a famous organ in a place cleverly named the “Organ Pavilion.” The Saturday before the meeting, I was at this particular park — at this very tea garden, even — when the organist began playing. It was a pounding and macabre collision of opposites, Phantom of the Opera vs. aromatic tea and delicate cookies. It was no contest. So, I thought it wise to inquire of the ladies employed at this Japanese Tea Garden about the organist’s weekday schedule:
“Does he play on Fridays?”
“Oh, no. He no play on Fridays.”
“Really? Oh, good. So he wouldn’t be playing, say, at 10:30 on a Friday morning?”
“Oh, no. He no play then.”
7) So, no, he wasn’t playing at 10:30 on that Friday morning. But at 10:31, he was. His theme was circus music and who doesn’t love circus music? Well, demons first of all. For one unhinged second, I believed Joey’s assertions about my condition. “Ooom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah.” I swear I could hear some sinister ringmaster in my head, “Ladies and gentlemen, kindly turn your attention to the center ring where Tracey, that Demon Clown, will now thrilll and amazzze you by twisting her head off and throwing it into the audience, scarring children for life because that is a clown’s lonely calling!”
And so there we sat, without speaking, sipping tea, waiting for the awful oom-pah-pahs to die …..
An auspicious beginning, indeed.
oh – you are such a tease!
but do get on with the play actually, because it makes me sick to my stomach to think of all that pressure building up around you. i am a terrible procastinator too, so i get the idea, but aren’t you getting ill just thinking about all there is to finish?
You really know how to make us curious! If it’s possible to be more curious than we already are…
Hope your writing goes well!
Juuuust waiting for Billy Graham and the blue bubble ring.
Yeah, WG, me too. Me too.
LOL!
Perhaps he wasn’t going to play at 10:30 PM!!
Why don’t you kill two birds with one stone?
Write your play about the meeting?
You could call it “Mid-Day in the Garden of Tea and Circus Tunes”
…sorry, couldn’t resist…
Steve — Yeah, great minds *must* think alike because JG suggested that too in the comments to the last post. 😉