This, That and the Other

This week has been sort of off beat. I say 'this week' when I'm actually just talking about the past three days, but it feels like a whole week.

First was the Skynyrd concert, which rocked! Amazingly I wasn't deaf the next day, though I can't imagine why. There were over 1000 people there and we ended up putting our chairs under a big tent in the back and then standing near the front when the main even began. Before that it was all people watching.

At first one of my friends pointed out a small empty patch of grass at the base of an enormous tree. We wound our way there and started to set up our chairs when a very imposing woman informed us that this spot was reserved for the XYZ family (can't recall the name now). My friend D pointed out that there was no reserved seating and nobody was there, nor had anyone left stuff, so it looked available to her. The woman just kept repeating over and over, "it's reserved for the XYZ family, stressing the name and giving us very meaningful looks. D was all ready to call in the event staff, but I looked around and saw that everyone under the tree was tattooed from head to toe and wearing leather and bandannas. Uh huh... I poked D and suggested we just find another spot, which was a bitch because it was hot as Hades and very few shaded spots were left.

So last night I ran into some old friends at the grocery store and one of them told me he had just bought a 1966 Harley. I was teasing him about which gang he was going to join and he joked back that it was an easy choice since his cousin was with the XYZ motorcycle gang. It was definitely the same name that woman was saying over and over. I'll e-mail him for the correct spelling so I can Google it and learn more, but he did say it was affiliated with the Hell's Angels. Wow! I'm really glad D backed down.

So that was Sunday. Then Monday I was in supervision when along comes the Pediatrician for Juvenile Hall, whom I was introduced to briefly once before. We each thought we recognized the other, but couldn't figure out where we might have met. After a rundown of everywhere I had worked in the past 16 years since we moved to this area we discovered that I worked for her dad! I was a Research Biologist for a large vegetable farm owned by a very affluent Italian family (in one way or another they own the whole damned city I work in!). This woman was one of the few people I didn't know well because she was off in medical school somewhere back east. I knew her name and I'd met her very briefly at holiday parties over the years, but she knew AR, my husband, much better since he did computer work not only for the company but in her parents' home as well. It was so weird to hear her prattling on about clients of mine and finding that I had 'two lives' worth of stuff in common with her and for two months we had no idea about each other. Too weird!