an unlikely friend

Later today, I will be keeping my friend Kelly company during his chemo treatment. I have met Kelly only once before - this past August, for about....oh.....maybe 8 minutes....

Here's the story. I was clearing mounds of unnecessary stuff out of my garage and putting anything remotely usable onto craigslist. One of those items was a Kitchenaide stand mixer. A beauty. But never, ever, ever used. I'm one of those for whom a Betty Crocker Brownie Mix is too much trouble. Shoot....half the time, I think toast is too much trouble! (my freezer is full of little boxes printed with the words "slit cover to vent before microwaving"...)

Being a night-owl, I placed the ad for the mixer online around 2:00 am at a pretty ridiculously low price. Being a night-owl, Kelly answered the ad around 2:15 am. Here was the email:

>>Oh, My, God.
>>
>>If you still have this, I want it. I will meet you anywhere, anytime,
>>with the bucks.

Now this is not your typical response from a craigslist-er. I mean...personality doesn't generally scream through the emails, you know? I instantly liked Kelly.

I emailed Kelly back, said it was hers, and we set a time for her to come pick it up. Only Kelly turned out to be a he, not a she.

Kelly breezed into my kitchen the next afternoon...bringing in with him some sort of light. A breezy, refreshing kind of shining. Tall, thin, a bit pale and clearly gay, Kelly was completely irresistible. I can't tell you what it was about him...he was just so there. When I asked him why he wanted the mixer, he said he baked scads and scads of cookies each week for the Seattle Gilda's Club and that his mixer had just given up the ghost.

Huh. Gilda's Club. Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer. That's what my sister was diagnosed with last fall.

Huh. Interesting....the people that fall across your path.

I will tell you more about Kelly and me later. But it is finally getting too late, even for me, so I need to go to bed. After all, I don't want to fall asleep this afternoon while keeping my unlikely friend Kelly company...