"I'm Ready for My Close-up Now, Mr. DeMille"

(Note: this post ends up somewhere completely different from what its beginning may lead you to believe.)

Last night and today were difficult.  When I delivered my quilts to the church for the Lee's Summit Quilters' Guild's annual quilt show yesterday, my asthma was triggered, not enough for a full attack but enough for my breathing to be labored and for my lungs to hurt.  (Perfume is one of my deadliest enemies.)  The older I get, the longer it takes for me to recover.  (I'm now breathing better, but my lungs still hurt.)

Of course, I had signed up to work at the quilt show this afternoon.  I wasn't sure that I had enough stamina, but I ended up being OK as long as I "worked" mainly sitting down.  This is not as impossible as it sounds since I ended up mainly handling cash in the Boutique and at the greeting table.  Serendipitously, my jobs matched my physical capabilities.

Before my shift began, however, I really wanted to look at the quilts.  I had to settle for a brief viewing since my steps were slow and, of course, I had failed to allow enough time.  As I walked around, I was beginning to think, despite the enormous competence of the women in charge, that somehow my Round Robin quilt was not on display.  That was wrong because it was hanging in the last grouping I reached.

Now you have to understand that the odds of my arriving at my Round Robin quilt at just that moment were quite low, so what happened next was a great gift for me.

A woman who was a stranger to me was photographing my quilt when I turned the corner!  Or, at least I thought so.  She could have been photographing the quilt hanging above mine.  Well, with such wonderful possibilities of great ego satisfaction on the line, I was willing to risk disappointment so I would not have to wonder about it for the rest of my life.

I asked the woman if she had photographed the lower quilt (mine!) and scared her into thinking I was ready to confiscate her camera.  (I do wish that when I say things, I could manage to have the actual words reflect my thoughts instead of implying something entirely different.)  I reassured her that as far as I knew cameras were not a problem and told her I really just wanted to know if she had taken a photograph of my quilt.  She had, and I was overjoyed.  I gushed my thanks repeatedly and probably scared the poor woman again.  The woman mentioned that she also plans to make her own copy of my quilt.  I am so thrilled.

My year has been made thanks to this woman.  Who cares if my lungs hurt if someone who is not a relative likes one of my quilts enough to photograph it?