My Friend Trudy

Yesterday, my friend Trudy was featured in the "Adventures in Reading" series in the "Living" (as opposed to the dead?) section of the Times-Picayune:

TRUDY McFARLAND

Co-owner of The Pearl Restaurant and retired librarian

Yes, another librarian. As Lisa at My Manner of Life observes, we librarians are all hotties. Katrina and the federal flood drowned two of Trudy's houses in Lakeview in New Orleans, her own and a rental house across the street. She had a rough time of it afterwards, and somehow we lost touch. I had no phone number nor email address. I had her home address, but I never got around to writing. Shame on me. It never occurred to me to call her at the restaurant. How silly of me.

Trudy and I met in Santa Fe at a Jane Austen conference a good many years ago. (Note: there are quite a few crazies who attend these conferences, along with the nominally sane. We classed ourselves with the nominally sane and stayed together.) She and another Jane fan from New Orleans and I hung out during the conference, and they took me along on a ride in a rental car to Taos and to visit the Native Ameircan Pueblos nearby.

As I told Paul, the BB, who loves his desert home, I believe that, like a swamp plant, I would die if I had to move to the desert. My apologies to all those who love the desert, Santa Fe, and Taos. The magic didn't happen for me, nor for my two new friends from New Orleans. We were wilting in the desert.

As for the Pueblos, the buildings were amazing, but it was one of the most depressing places I have ever been. Perhaps the sadness of generations of Native Americans hovers over them. I know a little of how strong the sense of place is to Native Americans and of the sacredness of the burial places of their ancestors, so many of which have been destroyed by the European newcomers who preyed upon them. It seemed a little obscene to visit as tourist and gawk.

But I digress. Back to the Trudy in the newspaper:

Have you ever had a romantic encounter that was generated by a book? Once, on a first date, the man walked in and I had a beautiful dog and he said, "What's her name?" I said, "Glencora." And he reached down to pet her and he said, "Glencora, have you found your Burgo Fitzgerald yet?"

And I thought 'Hmmm,' a successful businessman who reads Trollope. I was extremely impressed. We dated for about a year.

I would have been impressed, too, but for that to have happened to me, I would have had to name a pet after a character in a Trollope novel. My pet names turn out to be pretty pedestrian. We had one cat named "Boy", I suppose simply because he was a male.

Is there a writer who has shaped your way of seeing the world? Jane Austen has. But I've been reading her through so many years of my life -- from age 12 or 13 -- that sometimes I have trouble separating her sensibilities from mine.

Yes, absolutely. I'd say the same.

Jane's characters move me. I understand them. I understand their lives, their motivations. And then on top of that, she makes me laugh. I have a weakness for people who make me laugh.

Again, in that we are soul sisters. If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know that I have a weakness for people who make me laugh.

And now, I am going to call my friend.