Follow the Muse
I followed the muse into town today. It came in the form of a pink pick-up truck with a license plate that said “FARM USE,” but I read it as “FAR MUSE.” The truck was moving slowly, and I was worried I’d be late. I was meeting Ginnie from Golden Daze for breakfast at the Café Del Sol. Being that the truck was pink with a license plate like that, I cut the driver some slack. I was only 5 minutes late.
It was the second time in two weeks that I was having a first meeting with a fellow blogger, and on both occasions it was like re-uniting with an old friend. Like me, and Terri who visited Floyd last week, Ginnie is also originally from Boston, living in the South now.
She had a scone and I had an egg and cheese bagel. We got along famously and sat like two girlfriends comparing notes … how we got started blogging and why, which are our favorite blogs to read…and what about self-publishing? We also talked about family, marriages, and health. 
I don’t think we stopped gabbing for the hour we spent together. But I had to be at the Harvest Moon by 10:30 to pick up fresh fish from the Indigo Girls (not the singers but the two self-employed Floyd women in the fresh fish business called Indigo Farms), and Ginnie had to get on interstate 81 and begin the journey to New York to visit her kids.
After buying some mahi mahi and cod (which I made sure to pronounce as CAWD, using my Boston accent just to fool with the girls) and doing some town errands, I headed home to put the fish in the fridge.
My friend Jamie, who works downtown at The Winter Sun and frequently gives me blogging tips – one of which led to a story that the Floyd Press ended up buying – left a message on my answering machine. “There are some people from Pennsylvania driving to Baja in an old powder blue Valiant. It’s a cool car. You should come get a picture of it,” he said in his Australian accent.
The last thing I said to my husband last night before going to sleep was, “The only thing I want to do is take pictures of trees.” I was too tired to drive the 7 miles back into town, but not too tired to drive a few, up to the Blue Ridge Parkway overlooks to take pictures of the foliage at peak. The trees were waiting. But if the car had been pink instead of blue I probably would have gone back into town.
To be continued …
October 21st, 2006 9:34 am
colleen- it is neat that you have been able to meet fellow bloggers. though i don’t blog, i also feel like the bloggers i read are becoming “old friends”. since i’m a stay-at-home mom, plus have recently moved to a new area and don’t know a lot of people, it’s kind of like hearing from a friend each morning when i sit down with my coffee and read the few blogs that i keep up with (basically yours, fred 1st’s, and my sis). so thanks for blogging and being a friendly, thoughtful, and inspiring voice “out there”. !
October 21st, 2006 9:40 am
Thank you for reading, Amy! Maybe you’ll make it up some day and we’ll meet.
October 21st, 2006 11:38 am
The fact that you can easily get a scone and bagel underscores the transplant influence in Floyd. We southerners would eat biscuits, the kind you can’t get up North.
October 21st, 2006 12:24 pm
Very cool to visit fellow-bloggers! A different breed to be sure! Wish I lived closer to visiting you for breakfast, my favourite meal!
October 21st, 2006 8:44 pm
Sounds like you had a great one-on-one visit with Ginnie and yes, I’m jealous. But had she been there last week I’m not sure you, Deana or I would have gotten in any coherent conversation. It was pretty tough with three females…lol
That’s why you MUST come to Cedar Key this winter so we can have some one-on-one time.
That pink truck was definitely unique! All I could think of was Barbie.
October 21st, 2006 10:05 pm
Food, just up my line.
Personalized plates are so fun.
Did you get back to see the trees yet?
October 22nd, 2006 3:01 am
I love you saying to your husband ‘that’s all I want to do is take pictures of trees’…I cannot tell you how often I say or feel…’that’s all I want to do is take pictures’….!
Nothing else. Just take pictures and then see them immediately! (LOL) Instant gratification with this digital magic.
Why did I think you had already met Ginnie…? I could have sworn I saw a picture of Ginnie and you and Terri…And, obviously, I would have been wrong! Help Me Oh Nurse! (lol)
October 22nd, 2006 7:56 am
I hope the “cawd” was a s good as the company (I bet it was).
October 22nd, 2006 7:58 am
It is so nice to see all these blogger folks actually meeting each other lately and enjoying one another’s company.
Thank goodness that pink pickup didn’t have a Mary Kay license plate. 🙂
October 22nd, 2006 9:20 am
Hi Colleen: It was wonderful to meet you and I agree that we got along famously. (by the way, the mental disease I was trying to remember is “borderline personality”) You are not that far from me so I’m sure we’ll repeat this in the future. Hugs, Ginnie (PS: it’s a weird feeling to see a photo of me on a blog….ish!)
October 22nd, 2006 10:23 am
I love the fact your whipped out your Bostonian pronouncation of cod! My mother in law is a transplanted southern woman to the midwest for more than 60 years now. Her best girlfriend has been the same person all these years and she is a Bostonian. She still has her accent, just a little softer with time, but when she speaks it never fails to make me smile. “Karen, dear, is your cahr pahrked behind mine?”
October 22nd, 2006 4:11 pm
Today is a good day for a hot, steamy bowl of New England Clam Chowder or perhaps some Lobster Bisque. I was going to do some fall foilage pics today, but the rain has dampened that idea. Better to sleep.
October 22nd, 2006 9:22 pm
“Far Muse” — Love it! That and the Call of the Trees. Several years ago Mary and I drove up to Maine to meet a blogger friend of mine who’d driven down from Canada. Meeting face to face was a great experience. I’d love to get to Floyd some day and meet you all!
October 22nd, 2006 10:56 pm
Hi just popped in to say Gday
How lovely to meet a fellow blogger and have scones love them with Dates or fresh out the oven with jam and cream. As for the cod we have murray cod (from the murray river)And I have had 2 valients the first white with black roof/and a cream one. I will pop back Again soon
October 23rd, 2006 3:32 pm
All I could think of was “you say to-ma-to I say tom-a-to….” funny how you can see things differently.
How wonderful to meet yet another blogger! You are on quite a roll.