jolene

one of my new favorite friends, MP, is a 60something year old woman who walked in to my office in january. we immediately hit it off and spent an hour just cracking each other up. she reminds me of grandma joan and just lots of different women in my life. we have so much fun. 

every week, she wears these beautiful dresses from guatemala and mexico. for the last several months, we've been researching where i should get one. for a while, she was very stuck on the fact that her dress is not just any dress. it has a special design on the placket (is that the right use of that?) called a wipil (no idea on the spelling). 

she threatened to buy me one a few weeks ago, but i said nonono i'll go and get one. weeks went by. but then last night, i was driving by this mexican grocery store in town where i knew they had them, and i just pulled over and went in.

so voila. here i am in my new MP-inspired dress. we both wore them today. i should have gotten a picture. (did you notice my little-bit-too-blonde hair? that's a story for another day.)

that's only part 1 of the story though. there's a woman who walks by our office every single day wearing a blue version of my dress, and we always acknowledge when she goes by the window (the front of the office is made of very large windows, so you get to know all of the regular dog walkers, etc) because she's very noticeable in bright blue.

so today i'm there in the evening and the front desk women have gone home, so when i hear the door open, i get up and go see how i can help them.. and who is it! the blue dress lady. so i try to stay cool and pretend like she's just any normal person, but then i just couldn't help but tell her that we notice her go by every day.

her story is that she lives down the street from us.. and she walks to various restaurants every day. sometimes all the way to the highway (maybe a mile). she worked in advertising as a younger woman in chicago and houston and lots of cities.

i gave her my card if she ever needs anything. she was very sweet. i told her to look in our window when she passes by now and we can wave to her.