Benediction for Bobbie

      It was Spring - that 'new' time.  Languid walks were not so.  They were exciting.  This because we were 'new' - to the neighborhood.  We had been in the Hampton Roads area for forty-some years and lived in Norfolk - near the Trauma Center.  And lest anyone mistake this selection as familial autobiographical commentary, location WAS everything and doctor Daddy specialized in Emergency Medicine and Trauma - at work.  Around the house, he was your typical MIA father.  Time came, though, when - just like that, as they say - the kids were off to or finished with college and we were ready to downsize and smell some salt air. And we will, I promise, get to the bottom of who "they" are as well as their qualifications to speak to an issue - or at all - but not this evening.
      (The home we selected was the first one we'd seen in Virginia Beach.  I loved it and he said it was "out of the question" so we went through the motions of looking for a few years until misfortune blasted the owners' marriage apart and us back into the 'running' and the rest is history.  The same can be said of the 'hood.  There seems to be enough 'history' in this little beach-y mini-town to have it declared a 'wildlife preserve', thus obviating the need for property tax collection.  I'm just sayin'.  It's all pure conjecture. Of course "they" know but we don't speak.)
      It was such a cluttered period in our lives - marriages of children, grand peeps coming along, working - he medicine, me, the law - that evening, nay, ANY walk time was a respite, an adventure, sometimes a mystery even.  So it was with Bobbie's house.  Walking with our Beagle, Bridie, presented many an opportunity to pause, gaze disinterestedly and try to figure out what that 'thing' occupying the entire bay window on one side of their front door WAS.  If pressed, I would have said, "very large, dark wood, ornate skeleton of a 'period' cathedral."  And, in return for my effort, the inquirer would have blessed me with that 'look', you know, the one a family member would bestow on the doctor who, gazing at their loved one's x-ray, just said those words in response to, "Whaddya think it is, doc?"
      (Unfortunately for me, the treasure trove of history in this area did not include any on MY part in the arena of furnishings - fine or 'in-WAY-over-our-heads-here-so-making-do' in nature.  Furthermore, one can see - quite clearly - from the road that there is a sofa flanked by end tables plunked in front of our bay window.  You will come to see why this very fact placed Bobbie and me in the 'secret sisterhood' category.  Actually, I'm sure you already know.  Nary an object - save 'window treatment'  - don't know WHY that phrase must be used.  I mean, was the window ill? - can be ascertained viewing the main entrance side of ANY other address.   Bobbie, justifiably, was treating the world to but an iota of the assemblage of beautiful things contained within her home for magically attractive - in the magnetic sense - things.  We were not well enough ourselves to go the distance and 'treat' our windows.  To anything.)
      Ere long, I was treated to Bobbie.  And trust me, friends, there is no other way to tell you about the experience.  When a lovely, lemon-haired lady, seated and reading, on a tastefully ornate yet comfy bench in front of "the" window, clad in denim/crisp white/screaming sandals and a gold choker pending a stunning opal, leaps up and bounds across her front lawn, all a-chirp with smiles of greeting to you AND your beagle, color you 'treated', touched by an angel.  And that I was.  Because - as you really WILL come to see - that she is.  Later, Lorane. . . .