TheBanyanTree: My "blind date"

[Juanita Hazelton]

The Texas Library Association has a section on their website where people
attending the state library conference can advertise for a roommate.  They
also let you sign up a year ahead of time for conference hotels.  So last
year after the conference in Houston I signed up for a two person room in
San Antonio for the 2004 conference.  I reserved a room at the Crockett
Hotel, just across the road from the Alamo and within easy walk of the
convention center.  Meanwhile, during the year, people I might have shared a
room with had other plans so I signed up for a "blind" roommate.  We
corresponded by e-mail enough times to arrange our shared room.   Another
friend called to see if I'd share a room with her, but by then arrangements
were finalized.

Merrill drove me to Austin so I could have two vacation days at my son
Larry's to get in some grandma time with three week old Lauren.  Larry drove
me to San Antonio on Wednesday for the library convention.  On the way down
we discussed what I might not know about my prospective roommate.  "If she's
too bad, call me and I'll pick you up every night and take you back in the
morning" Larry told me.  He was talking about a drive of 75 miles one way.

Larry left me at the hotel at 9:00 a.m.  I couldn't check in until 3:00 so I
checked my bags and caught the shuttle to the convention center. My roommate
had already checked in when I got back about 6:00.  She had spent the day at
the convention center.  She is an author and was sharing a booth in the
exhibitor's section with some other authors, so her schedule and mine only
met at night.  I came dragging in hot and tired from my first day of the
conference planning to go to the Welcome party at the Witte Museum that
evening.  Pam popped out of the bathroom where she was combing her hair
getting ready to go to the same party.  She looked ok, was friendly enough,
we actually saw each other for a maximum of ten minutes.  By the time I was
ready for the party she had already gone, with plans to meet friends.  We
didn't really have any time to get acquainted until late that night.

Wow!  Did I luck out!  Pam and I were completely compatible.  We both like a
cool room, we both are grandmas, neither one of us was a party animal, we
both hated getting up early.  Pam had to get up early (like 5:30 a.m.) to be
at the convention center when the vendors opened their booths, most of my
meetings weren't until 9:30 or 10:00, so I could stay in bed while she got
ready and then get up myself after she was gone.  We talked so much she
never got out in time for breakfast!

We talked every night until late.  When the convention was over we were good
friends.  What a neat experience!  She's going to come to the library this
summer to do a program for the kids.  She writes children's books.  She has
a new one coming out in July about a duck who wants to be a ballerena -- I
saw the proofs, it's a great story and I loved the illustrations.  I learned
a lot about book publishing and she learned a lot about libraries.  And
Spoon and the Banyan Tree!  She likes my poems.

My blind date turned out okay!

Juanita