kindred spirits

Twenty years ago this summer, back when the Internet was fairly new to all of us, I joined a "listserv" for fans of Anne of Green Gables and the author L.M. Montgomery. I was a big Anne fan and it seemed like it would be fun to talk to others like me. We called ourselves the Kindred Spirits.

Best thing I ever did! That group of people have become some of my very dearest friends. I think the novelty of it all bound us together. Imagine receiving email from 100 strangers every day talking about subjects that your very own friends and family would never understand or were tired of hearing about.

Pretty quickly we started holding Kindred Teas when we found that some of us lived near each other and we found that we enjoyed each other in person as much as we did online.

One of these friends is Moonbeam (not her real name ) and she and I have stayed close even though we've only seen each other in person a couple of times. She lives in Georgia and was thrilled to hear I was moving to Florida. One day in May she emailed and said she was going to a conference just 3 hours away from me and she wanted to drive down to spend a day together. Plans were quickly made to go out to lunch and I was delighted to spend time with my friend.

Then it all went kerfuffle. An obligation reared its head and I had to tell Moonbeam that I wasn't going to be free that day after all. I was crushed.

But do you know what Moonbeam did? She drove down anyway, really early in the morning just so that we could spend 30 minutes together.

When someone goes to all that trouble to let you know you're important to them, you have to put on a spread.

 I just love this mixing bowl so I use any excuse to whip up something from scratch.

 ok, not exactly from scratch

 I also freshly baked some croissants. Ignore the box, I don't know how that got in there.

 add in a little freshly squeezed Tropical Blend V-8 juice and, voila, you have breakfast!

 oh yeah, I even broke out the extra special pretty paper towels for napkins. Nothing's too good for Moonbeam!

 lace tablecloth, soft music playing in the background, basket of baked goodies - perfectly Kindred breakfast

 Moonbeam arrived right on time and we settled in for a nice cozy chat. She ended up staying an hour because there was so much to talk about and we didn't want to say goodbye.

 she brought presents! Moonbeam knows exactly how much my darling Jasper meant to me and how much I still miss him so she knew these would brighten my day.

 I'm so glad Moonbeam made the drive down to spend a little time with me especially since it might be a very long time before we see each other again.

But that's tomorrow's story...