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Meeting Liralen
How to be green? Many people have asked us this important question. It's really very simple and requires no expert knowledge or complex skills.
-- Penny Kemp
Monday, February 2, 1998
I had dinner tonight with fellow journaler green-haired Liralen and her husband, John. I suggested this when I read in her journal that she was going for an MRI test to Group Health, just a few blocks from my home! She had busted her knee playing soccer a few weeks ago, and they needed to check it out to see if arthroscopic surgery is indicated. I'd been wanting to meet her, and had asked Jon Singer to take me over to her place sometime (yes, she's another person who knows Jon Singer) but that hadn't happened yet. This close geographical encounter was too good to miss!
I walked over from my apartment and got myself good and lost in the maze-like hallways of the hospital. I finally asked the triage nurse in the Urgent Visit Clinic, feeling guilty at taking her away from triage, where the MRI department was, and she pointed me in the right direction. Who'd have thought that it would be on floor AB?
I found John in the waiting area, and we chatted for the time that Phyllis/Liralen was having the procedure done. My camera is always a good conversation topic.
Finally Liralen came out, just a little the worse for wear. She had had to take out her new tragus piercing for the test, since "any metal object, no matter how small, could become a dangerous projectile." (From the information leaflet John and I looked at in the lobby) This could have been dicey, since it is still a new piercing. Points if you know where the tragus is!
John and I had discussed dinner possibilities earlier, but the three of us decided on the closest one: Georgina's Pizza and Italian food, right across the street from the hospital. I was amused by Liralen chirping enthusiastically over the menu. She has an infectious giggle, too! We started with hot artichoke heart and blue cheese spread, with crostini (that sounds so much tonier than little toasts, don't you think?). Then Liralen had risotto (to compare with her home-made version), John ordered sausage and carmelized onion pizza but got plain sausage pizza, and I had a wonderful pizza with fresh mozzarella and whole-leaf fresh basil.
We had lots to say about fellow journalers (but Liralen reads fewer journals than I do) and fannish connections. Oh, I had time before the food arrived to run back to my apartment and fetch a copy of my printed zine (write me for your own copy). Dessert was chocolate mousse and tiramisu. Yum! It was a fun evening, and I put the pressure on (as Jon has already done) for them to join us at Vanguard! That's my wish for anyone I find congenial.
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