1. On Bookkeeping
We needed some papers notarized, and we were trying to figure out how… and who… and when. Someone at Trudy’s office is a notary, but that would mean that I’d need to go there perhaps at lunch so that the three of us could me. The bonus was that she wouldn’t charge, whereas Frost Bank down the street from us has a notary service, but they charge.
This question of charging vs. not charging for notary services made me wonder about all the folks who are notaries and don’t charge. A lot of these people don’t necessarily do it for work. And those that don’t do it for work usually don’t charge. You just go to wherever they are, you pull out your papers and sign them, and they pull out their notebook and dutifully record the transaction and then afix their seal to the documents.
“Who would ever want to be a notary just to be a notary?” I asked rhetorically.
Trudy was silent for a moment.
“Well,” she said. “When I was a girl, I thought it was the coolest thing. And I always wanted to be one.”
I was silent for a moment. And then I said, “My bad. I should have known that.”
Because, of course, bookkeeping is one dimension of industriousness.
We laughed very, very hard.
2. On Determination
We were eating BurgerFi burgers and fries. (We had run eight miles that morning and were splurging, although truth be told my carb-encumbered guilt led me to get a lettuce-wrapped burger to somehow offset the fries). We were sitting outside under spectacular blue skies in the warm sun and a blustery breeze.
Something made Trudy think of something the Travis county Audubon Society had once done with tattoos. Evidently they had a contest for the best bird design to be chosen as some sort of sanctioned Audubon tattoo community awareness thing. She was wondering what ever happened to that.
She was silent for a moment.
“I’m old enough that I’d do that,” she said.
“Old enough?”
“Yes!” she said. There was a punctuated, determined aspect to her voice. “I’m old enough now that it doesn’t matter. I can have a tattoo.”
With that, she took a large french fry from the tray, dipped it into ketchup and took a bite. …Except she kind of missed her mouth and painted to globs of ketchup on her cheek.
I must tell you, that this kind of determination is another dimension of industriousness.
Trudy wiped the ketchup off her cheek, and we laughed very, very hard.