A hat, a bat, a boot and some friends

A hat, a bat, and a boot, oh my.

Look what Gayle of Fancy Stitches in Cleburne, Texas sent along.  Cynthia stitched this for a class that they’re running at the end of March.  Didn’t it turn out fun? (I think it was Cynthia who stitched a cool version of nine hearts a few years ago, with every heart stitched differently.)

I always enjoy crossing paths with Gayle and her group.  We met at the Dallas needlepoint market a few years ago and were all staying in an overflow hotel that was having a hard time keeping lots of things straight.  Over bumping into each other a couple of days in a row at the show and commiserating over hotel shenanigans we were able to put it together that we really did have more in common than needlepoint, and that in fact the hotel had repeatedly, firmly, and insistently mixed up Gayle and I.

After we’d started putting together the coincidences and sharing the two sides of events, one day Gayle told me she’d been charged for two glasses of wine that Mary and I had had the night before.  Gayle told the hotel that she knew the real wine-drinking ladies and they were sweet, but she didn’t feel like paying for their wine! (Quite right.)

I remember one of our last nights there Mary and I had to stand at the front desk after having had a room key once again deny us entry to our room (three out of four nights) and being told that no, I was Gayle Anderson.  And Gayle Anderson had checked out.  So of course my key didn’t work.  Because I had left.

It was so surreal.  I swear I started wondering if I was Gayle Anderson.

I’ve condensed the whole thing so much here, and let’s say that when the mistakes followed me home I eventually got a very good deal on my stay.  After a few more strange conversations I eventually got someone who assured me that no, I’m not Gayle Anderson.

When I got home from that trip I told my mom and dad the whole story and I think it must have taken half an hour. They thought it was hilarious (there were some pretty funny ways we were effected, when told from the normalcy of home) and Gayle Anderson’s name would come up in conversation often after that. Always the full name Gayle Anderson, as that’s what the hotel had always called her.  And me.

The following Christmas after I’d opened presents my mom handed me another one and I opened it to find a sweet little sketchbook. Stuck to it was a post note.  Know what it said? “Gayle Anderson.”  My mom.  The joker.

So it always makes me smile to hear from Gayle, and I love what they’ve done with this canvas.

(Scouty getting in on the action.  “Gayle Anderson, I presume?”  Another joker.)