Penny Lane

This week has been so eventful! I finished the shop hop. I went to a professional sportsball game. Aaaand…I got my first PodPledge supporter! This is so exciting, now I have to deliver on what I promised for support. I will also get to see exactly how the accumulation works. I *think* I understand, but I’m often a kinetic learner, so I may not have fully understood. While I will get that off before I leave for Madrona, I’ll need to play more with that site once I’m back. Everything I receive via PodPledge will be used to offset the costs of fun events…like Madrona.

Speaking of Madrona, I’m getting all my stuff and things together for the classes.

As you can see, my packing is mostly project related, vs. clothes related. It’s all about priorities.

I have also made sure to print out all my supply requirements and homework. I am finally getting excited.

We got our train tickets last week. I had planned to have a room to myself, but Pam needed a roomie, so we’ll be snoring in tandem.

I think I forgot to tell her I’m *really* not a morning person. She wakes up at the butt-crack of dawn because she’s used to having to do farm stuff before work.

Hopefully, she’ll have all her appendages when we are done.

It was at Madrona last year that I met Pam. Usually, I make her tell the story of how we met. She says she was in class, keeping quiet, focusing on learning tablet weaving. This is where people who know her laugh in disbelief. I assure them that she actually was minding her own business, but they never believe me, either. Anyhoo, in her story, there were these two girls in the corner (of which, I was one) laughing and being loud (I agree). But *this* is where her story gets wonky. She tells people we were saying things like “Marilyn does it this other way…”. (Marilyn is a “rival” of the teacher of the class we were in) We were not. However, we WERE the only three who the instructor remembered the names of.

Fast forward to the next day, I’m in a different class, minding my own business. Pam is next to me makes a couple of forays into small talk. I’m terrible at small talk. That and my RBF probably makes me come off pretty poorly. Luckily, Pam is never deterred. She asked me “what are you doing after this class?” I replied “eating lunch”. See?!?!?!?!? Terrible! “You need to meet my friends…and show us how to do that” Referring to the Portuguese Knitting I was doing. So, I followed along, and the rest is history. This part, everyone who knows her believes.

Pam is a force of nature. No one seems to notice me frantically blinking out SOS with my eyes when we go to different events together. That’s not true, Dorothea did, but she told me it was too late. I did have a chance to escape at the very beginning, but much like small talk, I’m terrible at picking up cues.

This story starts with our Airbnb room, which was located over a pawn shop. The instructions are to pick up the key at the pawn shop before such and such a time. If after that time, please go to the bar next door, and the bartender will have your key. Barb, who was my roomie last year, and I arrive after said time. So, we go to the bar. We ask the bartender about our key, and he’s confused. So he hollers at this guy who’s sitting at the bar, much like Norm from Cheers. The guy confirms there is a key behind the bar, and we get our key.

It’s a lovely little room…but, the door doesn’t actually latch. As you can see from the featured picture, it’s a lovely door, but the deadbolt is what keeps the door closed. I met Pam on Friday, and we were to meet for lunch on Saturday. Barb had a class Saturday, whereas I did not. She picked up her keys from the table, and I closed and locked the door and went back to bed. Later, I got up and got ready for lunch…but…no key. Barb had taken the key, thinking it was her car keys, and I was too asleep to know. So…I was locked in. I couldn’t leave because the door wouldn’t even latch (much less lock), so I would have left all of our stuff in a room with the door wide open. I didn’t call Barb because she wouldn’t have had time to come back and get me and go back for her class. The end result being that Pam thought perhaps she had scared me away (as if!). Had I just let her believe that… I could have escaped her orbit.

BUT…where’s the fun in that? Pam persevered, and I said “Yes” and have had many adventures since, and am looking forward to next weeks adventures! See, don’t you want to help me make new, exciting stories?