After saying hello to Vals mom, who looked stunning by the way, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a person who seemed to appear out of nowhere, like some kind of special effect, dressed entirely in black sitting like a hidden treasure in an obscure location at the very end of a string of tables pushed together that stretched from one end of the bar to the other. Before I had a chance to react, this dark haired beauty took my hand. I was literally struck speechless! “You are Roe, I would know you anywhere!” she said, in sort of low whispery yet mysterious tone of voice. Instantly I knew the warm hand holding my cold one belonged to Difficult Soul. I was amazed and taken totally by surprise by her presence at that very moment. Boot Lady had texted me while I was at the airport in Chicago, and I was quite intent on locating her in that room full of expectant faces. It blows my mind that in my haste to find boot the hoot, I could have even momentarily forgotten that this enigma…this inscrutable creature was going to be here in this room as well. Our illusive Soul always seemed to be cloaked behind some sort of veil of ambiguity. I knew she must have struggled as did a few others, with the idea of letting go of her anonymity. The minute she revealed herself to me, I realized she was the very image that I had seen so many times around thoughts.com. Her avatar was not a younger version of herself, not a picture of some random person or a famous movie star, an inanimate object or a cartoon character. The face before me was the one I knew so well, the one embedded in my memory whenever her name was spoken or her words were read. I had always wondered if she looked anything like her picture, and I am here to say, she is her picture. As a matter of fact, DS was a trend setter, changing her avatar every once in a while long before it became the norm. I had always believed she chose various ones, to tease us or possibly reflect her current mood. Whatever the case, every photo had a common denominator. Each one possessed a certain subtle and always sexy mystique that was eloquently expressed in her unique style. Sometimes she would share insights or pass along some advice or share her journal, other times she would allow us to sample her poetry or prose, music or musings. Her memorable style was sometimes provocative. I did not always understand everything but everyone else seemed to believe every word she wrote was magical. What hardships had she been dealt that made her soul so difficult? I gathered, from reading her words, that she had experienced an enormous amount of pain and had done quite a bit of soul searching. Even though she was 20 years my junior her soul was much older than mine. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to carry on any sort of meaningful conversation. I knew I had to leave this very wise and profoundly wounded woman, who was growing and healing daily before our eyes. I had planned to spend some quality time with her later. I wanted to try to get to know the sensitive person behind that gorgeous face and the long dark luxurious hair.
The atmosphere in the in the bar was charged with anticipation and excitement. Some winners appeared a little nervous and unsure about what Ben and his wife, Valentina had in store for our lucky group over the next few days. The wide assortment of personalities seemed to outnumber the bottles of wine and blocks of cheese on the tables. Every person in attendance reminded me of all sorts of colorful presents under the Christmas tree. Like a little kid, I couldn’t wait to see what was inside all of them. As a girl, after unwrapping the first one I was always a bit hesitant to move on to the next because I hadn’t had enough time to savor the gift in front of me. The situation I found myself in that evening was very similar. I knew there were more riches in the rest of the room and as much as I wanted to sit down next to DS and ask a million questions, I did not want to seem rude to everyone else, I needed to introduce myself to the rest of the crowd. Leaving DS was like setting aside one of my favorite presents, yet lucky for me, there were a lot more surprises waiting for me that evening to unwrap… so to speak.
On my way back to my seat I saw Wayne’s familiar and friendly face. Our spammer cop, the one who works tirelessly night and day to enforce the rules and restore law and order to the site was beaming and his smile lit up the room. Good old Wayne, unbelievably, is only a few days younger than me! (how could that possibly be?) that’s another story. Our kids are also around the same age. Although Linda, his wife gave birth to twins and at one time she had 3 under 2, God bless her! Wayne had been adopted and only discovered rather recently that twins ran in his family. Another story…Waynes.
Our moderator was wearing what looked like a spiffy new shirt. Normally I don’t refer to a guy as radiant, but that evening Wayne truly was glowing. It was as if we were his family and he was so darn proud of each and every one of us and absolutely thrilled we were all finally …together!
Last year my husband, Poor Joe, who could not make it this year, another story and Linda, both non bloggers, bonded. They carried on their own conversations while Wayne and I gabbed nonstop about all the escapades on thoughts. Neither one of them had any interest in anything having to do with blogs. My family still calls them blabs…another story!
Wayne and I had kept in touch this past year over the phone. He values his friendships and works hard to maintain them, almost as hard as he works to rid thoughts of the bad guys. Every time he called, I was pleasantly surprised to hear his voice and that distinctive laugh of his, on the other end of the line.
However, he cannot be on the phone and the computer at the same time. One Sunday afternoon, he and I were chatting while I was logged on to thoughts. Wayne was telling me about some guy in the forums, who had been giving him headaches. While we were talking, he was regaling me with stories about this particular clown, so while we were conversing, I went into the forums to snoop around and happened to notice a blogger causing some trouble and quickly alerted Wayne. Like Superspammer man, he immediately hung up to hunt down his prey. I couldn’t help checking out the scene and almost fell out of my chair laughing when I saw that Wayne had found an animated bunny rabbit holding a riffle complete with sound effects and the two of them proceeded to chase away the perps. I believe it was Tony Ray and another guy named John, who pointed out the bad guys, and each and every time, Wayne and his hilarious bunny rushed to the scene of the crime and began shooting.
Before Superspammerman and his deputy bunny had a chance to catch their breath, it was time to catch another bad blogger! Tony and John were Waynes lookouts, warning him whenever a crime was being committed by announcing the whereabouts of any dangerous forum felons “Hey Wayne , get over her asap, there’s trouble brewing!” Wayne who had been shooting the breeze with me earlier, would grab his riffle toting rabbit and began hopping the hours away on an all night shooting spree. He works very hard to keep the streets in never never blog land safe for the rest of us.
One night, Ben presented an award to Wayne, for all his hard work and devotion to thoughts.com, and I couldn’t think of a more deserving recipient. All kidding aside, I know for a fact that our blogging site and Ben’s positive influence has impacted our award winning buddy’s life in profound ways and Wayne has certainly made his mark on all of us, around here!
Part 6,
Still In the wine and cheese bar on the first night in Vegas
preview
I digress, I think it was Wayne that introduced me to Frenchy and his wife Annabeth and Lady G and her husband Aaron and friend Mandy who was supposed to be the guest of Tony Ray one of the winners who was not able to make the trip.
And that’s another story
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