Another Blogger MeetUp. [UPDATED]

It's always a great moment when blogger connections are born out of the virtual amnion into the "real world."  Yes, I'm sure my pregnant metaphor is not accidental:

That's Alison Bolen and her DAUGHTER!  Yess!!!

UPDATE:  I didn't realize that I was the first blogfriend Ali had ever met!  (She has friends who've subsequently become bloggers, but that's different.)  Let's see, I've now met Tamar, Michael, Tom Strong, another Ali, Melinda -- in a snatched few minutes of rueful caregiver commiseration on a Greenwich Village street corner -- and now Alison, face to face (and several more, including Alan Stewart Carl, at the Centrists Coalition meeting way back).  (See, told you I'd get around to linking).  And I feel like I've met Danny.

There's a serenity about Ali -- she's laughing now -- in spite of how frazzled her day was, and her life must be, what with working from home and soon-to-be-three small children.  Maybe it's something about pregnancy, or maybe she's just in shock, but I doubt it.  Here's a highly competent IT professional who also has a zone of womanly peace around her that you can sink into like a down comforter.  I suspect it's what her husband fell in love with, and apparently also the general manager of Squid's.  (It's a really good restaurant.)

Comments

[Ruth Anne]

I'm a little jealous.

[Alison]

Oh, you should be, Ruth Anne. Annie is just as personable & engaging in person as she is online. Go see her if you get the chance!

[reader_iam]

Wow.

Wow!

I hadn't seen this.

[reader_iam]

RAA: You're practically neighbors, after all.

[sippicancottage]

Look at all the pleasant people in that photo. One person is smuggling additional pleasant people into the place under her shirt. The other is ensnaring additional pleasant persons from far-flung locations in her comments snare.

It's over now. I'm here.

[amba]

smuggling additional pleasant people into the place under her shirt.

I had to smile.

[Melinda]

Let's see, I've now met

And also me, albeit fleetingly as you were moving your car.

[amba]

And that was an important meeting to me, which I think about often. Besides which yours is one of the blogs I check most often. What's wrong with me?? I must have filed it in another part of my brain, under "beleaguered caregivers" rather than "bloggers." Amended.

[Danny]

I totally feel like I've met you too, and I have to remind myself that we've never laid eyes on each other. But we did have a lovely dinner with your brother and his great family during our trip to Chicago this week and with all the connections between our two families, we should do a DNA test.

[Melinda]

I must have filed it in another part of my brain, under "beleaguered caregivers"

Now I'm a "recovering beleaguered caregiver."

[Alison]

My husband always says he fell in love with me because I liked Guns N Roses and because I was a smart ass. He was 16.

[amba]

And you were . . . ?

Those are pretty good qualifications, though. Is it just my imagination, or would a girl who liked Guns N Roses have been rather rare?

Melinda: I hope that's not like being a "recovering alcoholic," which implies "always recovering, never recovered." Way too soon to know, though.

[amba]

Actually, I dread "recovery," should I live to see such a thing. I think it's easier to shut down than to open up again. I'd be like the numb-frozen hand that starts to hurt searingly when you run cold water on it (having grown up in Chicago, this is a first-person metaphor), or the animal that's lived so long in a cage it paces circles in the open.