“You want fame? Well, fame costs. . .and right here is where you get it.”

I’m watching Fame the movie this weekend. And while I’m excited Debbie Allen makes an appearance, if I don’t hear that line, I’m gonna write my senator. Anyone else going to see it? Has anyone seen that Jennifer Aniston movie?

I have purple nail polish on today. It looks perfectly trampy.

I wanted to show off the rest of my ACFW conference pics.

This is author Colleen Coble’s side profile as Debbie Macomber smiles on. Debbie is thinking, “That is one sassy profile you got there, Colleen!” Both authors are incredibly nice. Debbie was our keynote and has a purse-full of testimonies and amazingly cool God stories. If you ever get a chance to hear her speak, do it.

Here’s a really dark picture of the Thomas Nelson crew.

We had a great time of hanging out and eating fajitas. Notice there’s absolutely no food left on the table. We T-Nel people can take care of business.

Thomas Nelson authors Kimberly Cash Tate and Rachel Hauck, two ladies I got to chat with during dinner. Very fun authors.

Here’s my view from one of the conference rooms. I believe this is the ugliest carpet in the world.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I have no idea what we discussed in the class I was in during this time, but I do know I have the random patterns of that ugly carpet memorized. Marriott, you give carpet a bad name.

So how do you know if you’re in a good airport?

So I was in the Denver airport and went to the ladies room. When I did the sit-down-on-the-toilet-seat-pivot, I saw this.

From the corner of my eye it looked real, so I about tinkled in my pants. But I tingkled in the toilet instead.

On the flight from Denver to Dallas, I sat by a nice woman. She was a grandmother. Very kind. She sat down and said hello. I said hello. And then I got that feeling. You know when you just have this feeling that someone wants to talk? And if you didn’t know me personally you probably wouldn’t know this, but I’m not a talker. I’m not. I’m a listener, but I’m not a talker. Especially if I haven’t known you forever and a day. So anyway, even though we said nothing more than hello, I just knew this woman wanted to chat. And me being me–I ignored it. I got out my book, got out my ipod, got out my pillow that travels with me everywhere (shut up).

So about 45 minutes into this flight, I’m feeling guilty for not initiating conversation. I notice the woman reaching for the flight mag for the second time. Nobody reads those things twice. So I offer her my People. She gladly accepts. And then I do it. I open my mouth.

“Are you leave home or going home?” I ask.

And thus begins our hour long conversation. Because the soft spoken woman didn’t just want to talk, she needed to talk. It was one of those conversations that I kept thinking there’s a book or two here for someone.

The woman’s sister had just died. She was returning from the memorial and from helping her brother clean out Sister’s apartment. Sister was in her early 60s and had led a tragic life. She had made a lot of bad decisions. She had been cremated, but since she was not married 75 percent of her siblings had to sign off on this cremation, which we both thought was odd. Sister was a pack rat, which brought to mind the movie Grey Garden’s again. They had to clear a path in each room to get to her things. She had 700 DVD and VHS tapes. The videos, along with much of her other things, would be donated to a women’s shelter because “My sister would’ve liked that. I’d seen pictures where she had been beaten up by various men herself.”

Sister also had a life insurance policy, but she had borrowed against it, and now only 29 dollars remained. The woman beside me and Brother had never heard of the man listed as beneficiary, but they were going to try and find him. Yet no one knew this name. (I loved that part)

While they were cleaning her apartment, Brother said, “Come here.” And he showed the woman a list of 14 names. They were the names of Sister’s husbands. The woman said, “Funny thing is. . .as far as we know, she only got divorced three times.”

Sister also had a kitty in her apartment. All the siblings love animals. Brother especially. While they were there sorting through her personal effects, they noticed the kitty acting strange. They took the kitty to the vet and it was bad news. He had kidney stones and surgery would cost 2500 with no guarantee the kidney stones wouldn’t be back the next day. So with no choice, they had to put the kitty down. Brother felt terrible. Guilty. She had tears in her eyes as she told this. I had tears in my eyes as she told this. She assured Brother he did the right thing. I assured her she did the right thing.

The woman didn’t know what made Sister fall for bad men and make all these bad choices in life. But she had had a hard, hard life. The woman said she herself had a good life. So when the family needed money for Sister’s funeral, she knew she had to pay it. In fact, she had Brother pass on money for another sister’s hay for her animals. The woman had her family, she hadn’t led this troubled life, she’d said, almost like she felt a little guilty. She knew she had to help the others.

Sister got a gravestone near her mother. It  had a cat on it. It included Sister’s name, date of birth, and date of death. And two simple words: In Peace.

By the end of  the story, I was sniffing and wiping my eyes. I assured her she had been a blessing to her family. I listened to stories of her grandchildren and told her she was a good grandmother. I listened to her tell me that she was in a trial experiment for the swine flu vaccine. I was glad we had shared a story. And not a  Coke.

When the flight was over, I had a million things to say to the lady. But all I did was give her a lame, “Good luck with everything. They’re fortunate to have you.” And then a mumbled “God bless you.”  I wanted to tell her she was sitting by a praying girl. That I had said a few prayers for her while we were talking. That she had a sweet and gentle spirit that I could feel as soon as she sat down or I never would’ve said a word beyond hello. That her sadness was palpable, but she couldn’t take that guilt on that she was carrying. Because none of it was her fault. That I loved the story of her 15 year old grandson refusing her offer to drop him off in an out-of-sight place at football practice because he wanted his grandma to take him right to the door. That I had known the ending to the cat story before she had started. And they did all they could. That she had made an imprint on my day and God had placed our seats together. Because the plane had not been full–and she could’ve easily have had an entire row to herself. If she had moved.
But she hadn’t.
And neither had I.

That’s what I wanted to tell her.

You just never know what you’re going to get when you sit down on a plane. It was better than screaming children any day. Or the man sandwich I was in a few years ago. I won’t even explain that one, but my personal space was so invaded on both sides I thought I was going to cave in on myself.

I hope you have a lovely weekend. Next week I’m giving away 3 copies of a new YA book, so do stop back by.

JEN

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