The Color Red

Where the hell have I been? Well busy. And not here mostly. But I am finally settling into fall and bought a few sweaters to get me started. And this has nothing to do with my post. And then none of these paragraphs are related to the other but I am tieing them all together by the color RED! Because it is fun to do. So what has happened in the last few weeks brought to you by the color red.

Red started here....

The color red is the color I choose to wear.
A few weeks ago I accompanied Mav on a blind-ish date (a boy she met online). I was the tag-along and he was bringing his own tag-alongs. First, I had to convince crazy Mav that Date was hott. In his red shirt. The red shirt became my focus for the night. He ended up taking his red shirt off - crazy kids with the layering these days. But when he lost the red shirt he lost his edge on the pool table. So Mav tied the red shirt around his shoulders a la Preppy Skippy. But we got the red shirt back and sniffed it. You would have sniffed it too. Nobody saw us. We made sure. Mav ended up wearing the red shirt that night and is on to Date #3 with the Red Barron. [Aside to Mav: I didn't tell you this, but when you were doing your little strut with the pool cue, he turned to me with a chuckle and said, "She's a piece of work, isn't she?" And I replied, "Only the best."]

The color red is the color of my eyes from The Crying.
I may have experienced the most touching father-daughter moment outside of movie-watching. It started with my flight down to Charlotte last weekend and this sweet 16-year old girl, on the same flight, for some reason befriended me. I learned that this was her first time on a plane and at the end of that plane ride she was being reunited with her father who she hadn't seen in 5 years and was going to live with because apparently she is really smart and they (divorced parents) want her to go to Duke. Anyway she was nervous. She tried to disguise it as fear of flying but the more we talked the more I learned that she was nervous about seeing "dad." So when we finally arrived her dad was waiting at the gate with flowers, a teddy bear, and open arms. They recognized each other immediately and embraced with that do-not-ever-let-me-go-again-oh-I'm-not-letting-you-go embrace. There was not a dry eye in the terminal. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to hug this man too. I wanted this girl to keep in touch with me so I could be sure she was doing fine. But I had to move on. I think she is going to be fine. But this moment really touched me in a way that I need to explore more...

The color red is the color of Lisa's jacket.
I just spent five days staying with my sister-in-law while my brother was whooping it up on the client's dime. We had our own fun with our new favorite pasttime. You too can enjoy the fun! All you need is a couple bottles of wine (then Coronas when that runs out) and QVC. First make sure the kids are in bed and asleep. Then drink your bottles and turn on Lisa, ubiquitous host extraordinaire (seriously, that girl is always on QVC). Drink every time she says one of her exclamatory words like "that's fatulous!" or something like "holy cow!" Crack up when her sales pitch for some $12 metal hooks is, "This would be a great gift for someone in a nursing home," or for the olive handbag which looks more like evergreen (or pinetree the drunker you get), "It is soo roomy you could fit four wallets in here!" Seriously contemplate one's need for four wallets and the problems that would occur. Then kick up the excitement a notch and call QVC to have the cameraman pan in on the red jacket Lisa is wearing because you really can't see the stitching as good but what we really want to see is crazy Lisa's hair.

The color red is the color of my lipstick now.
Hold it! I have, um, uh.......a boyfriend? How on earth did I get a guy who is not playing any games and seems to be making his number one priority me and my happiness. Is it freaking me out? A little but not as much as I thought is would. I mean he is sweet and kind of exciting. Because soon I will be able to talk about a ride in an open cock-pit airplane, a ride on the back of a Harley, and the drive in the country in his vintage car. Oh, and there is a house in New Orleans. And he is building me a fire tonight and giving me bottles of wine and everyone who knows me knows that I am AFRAID of fires but love bottles of wine. But he is a guy and he likes to build and fix things and I find it terribly sexy. He is a science geek and he is creative. To quote Lisa, "That's fatulous!" So he is taking me to black tie events, concerts, nice dinners, and comedians. I will have to repay him by taking him to Jay's. Thought I was going to say the color red is the color of love or my heart or some sappy metaphor? Nope, I've got Chanel Portofino plumping up my pout because I am doing a lot of kissing these days..........sigh, I just love the color red!