My friend: Mayre

Hey, now I am here to blog a new friend. Actually, it is a very old friend. Let me call her Mayre, which is not so different from her real name. I met Mayre five years ago when I just arrived here. She was a volenteer for International student center. By chance, we became English partners.

She is a woman in 40s or 50s. I never asked for her real age though. Never married. Some traits of her made me think she might be homosextual, but again, I do not have any substantial evidence to back it up. She was a strong woman, no doubt about it. She told me that she took a bus to travel around the country with little money in her pocket after high school. She did not seem to be employed for a long time. She worked by herself as a professional organizer (whatever it means). Ironically, her room was always in a mess. And smelt bad, probably from burning too many candles. She had a big car, so I guess that she was quite independent (at least she can move herself). Last time she moved, she actually asked for my help.

Of course, she gave me more help than I did to her. We met maybe once a week during my first year or so. She showed me around nearby towns. I sincerely appreciated it, as much as I appreciated all the English classes offered by EFS. When I needed a big car to move, her car was always available.

Hey, you might ask, why I think of blogging her now? Here is the reason. We have lost contact for three years. The other day I was randomly googling a lot of people, and got some hit with her name. It turned out she had a presentation in a nearby town today. So after dropping a friend off the airport, I showed up before her presentation. She did not age too much, probably because she was old when i first met her. She is still in her usual colorful clothes. I went forward and asked her whether she still remembered me. It only took her a second. She first looked puzzled, then shouted, "Oh, Cheeky Monkey! How can I forget?" You know, one day four years ago, when we were walking aroung Los Altos downtown, we passed a shop with a cheeky monkey logo on the window. So I asked what it was all about, and I guessed she had a hard time explaining to me. I was surprised that she remembered this one. But again, hey, I remember it too. She then introduced me to one of her friends. I can tell that she had mentioned me to the friend before. I had to leave early, so I gave her my name card, and got one from her. She name card still looked cheap, exactly like the one she gave me before, except with a new cellphone number. I promised to take her out for dinner some time and catch up with life. This blog about Mayre will be continued after our meeting.

I do not often use negative words describing my friends in my blogs. But you may have noticed that I have used words like "weird", "cheap". I want to make a point here. She is the last one I will make friends with if I had alternative options when I just arrived. My selection of friends are very judgmental, trying to achieve maximal returns with minimal investment of time. However, I am happy to know Mayre, maybe just because she had helped me out before, or maybe she gave me an example of what it is like to be lowly-educated, to be single in the 50s, to have no mainstream career whatsoever, to be poor. To be honest, I care about her and hope she does well. I do not think there is much I can do to return the help she gave me, but my showing up in her presentation is one other thing she will remember for a long time besides "cheeky monkey". (To be continued after I had dinner with Mayre).