I just met a notary named Maria.

 

Maria and I have been having problems in getting together as of late.  Her daughter is planning to move out of state with her kids, and Maria can't wait.  She's at that stage of life where she's raised her 2 daughters, and is now helping her daughter to raise the next brood of kids.  Maria deserves her freedom, having been both divorced and widowed in the years I've known her.  She deserves the chance to have an unfettered love life with a nice fellow without having to worry about her children and grandchildren.  But the demands put on her by her daughter has made this impossible as of late.  So, when Maria and I scheduled a short session to get my remaining foreign birth registration paperwork taken care of (papers notarized), it was something that carved out precious time that was being called on by her daughter. 

 

I was awake early, and didn't start to get moving until 10:15.  I was out the door by 11:00, and met Maria at noon.  It took some time to make sure that everything was notarized/stamped properly (Foreign Birth Registry form, Grandmother's marriage certificate, Copy of  my US passport photo page, and 4 passport photos, 2 of them with notary stamps.  We were done within 30 minutes, and I went to Walmart while she went on an errand for her daughter.  (That's more than enough about Maria's life for a long while.)  By 4:00, I had mailed off the paperwork, and was ready for the next thing scheduled for the day - a co-op board meeting.

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The co-op board meeting went smoothly. We now have a full complement of board members, and we're getting close to the light at the end of our tunnel.  Hopefully, these new members will have a lot to contribute when they get accustomed to how the board does things.

 

How do you talk to a friend named Maria....

 

I've known my friend Maria for almost as long as I've lived in my apartment.  We worked together near the beginning of our careers, and we've kept in contact with each other through the loss of my wife, her divorce, and the loss of her second husband.  Neither of us has been available when the other has been free, and that's a plus for a good friendship.  I'm probably the only person who can say that she slept in my bed every night for several months, and there was nothing immoral about it.  (I lent her a folding cot with thick mattress, as her ex-husband stole all of the bedroom furniture in the house.  My 'bed' was over 35 miles away when she slept in it.)

Maria knows me both as Mario and as Marian, and is comfortable with me in both presentations.  She leans to the right politically, while I lean to the left.  And yet, she finds what is going on in DC these days very disturbing.  So, when I started discussing politics, she didn't challenge me on the facts - she knew that the Orange Snowflake is up to no good.

The real reason for us getting together was to have lunch - we haven't been able to do so in months.  The secondary reason was to have some paperwork notarized.  Over lunch, I found out that her two grand-kids are living at home again, and that the eldest has already entered puberty.  (If I ever go through that experience again, it will be because of estrogen, not testosterone, like my first puberty.  But I digress.)  The younger of the two grand-kids is still cute.  I can only imagine what it will be like when this child enters puberty.  As you can guess, when a grandmother is raising her grandchildren, it takes a lot of energy out of a person, leaving little left for her volunteer work and for her social life.

Lunch lasted over 2 hours, and at the end, she notarized some of the documents I'll need to apply for my second passport.  And then, we left Cold Spring to go our separate ways....

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I had no energy when I got home, and it was all I could to so that 2 loads of laundry could get done.  By the time it was done, I had decided to blow off game night for a change.  I never do this.  But with RQS coming up tomorrow, I wanted to be ready for her arrival in the afternoon.

Later in the evening, RQS and I got into a long discussion about my brother, the family homestead, and interactions with  both friends and family.  I mentioned my friend Nan from the AOL Widows/Widowers chat room (long disbanded) and a wish to visit her in the "North Country"  RQS was up for it (she wanted some new photo opportunities), so I sent a DM to Nan to see if it would be OK.  Hopefully, she will be up for visitors, as I know that people in their 80's don't have a lot of life in front of them....