Share #9: Pho

Funny how you see a friend and you want to see her again. A door hardly opened is hard door to open, but a door on a swing, swung frequently, gives effortless!

But Mylinda's bus was late and my tiresome cough was still hanging around, so we decided against First Thursday Art Walk and went for pho instead. We met at Than Brothers on Aurora, where the pho flies out of the kitchen. When ours arrived, we threw in the condiments--basil, sprouts, jalapeño, brown sauce, hot sauce--and got to work. I made it through the meal, despite numerous coughing attacks.

I met Mylinda in 2006 at Green Lake, at my poetry desk. I later worked with her at The Phinney Center. At her urging, I founded a reading series there. She was the Phinney Center Gallery Curator. Now she's at Sound Transit and sits on numerous art panels. She's currently working with Oddfellows in Ballard to bring new artists into their gallery.

We talked about the F.O.E. and Oddfellows and other art spaces in Ballard and about art walks here and there. She told me about her recent classes and about a psychic fair, then she showed me her dollar store finds. Four bags of googly eyes, a pack of glue gun glitter sticks and a strand of battery operated lights. I suggested adding eyes to our cream puffs. Before parting, we read a paragraph from the book Jean loaned me, "Basic Self-Knowledge" by Harry Benjamin. I argued with every few sentences. We'd have a little discussion then Mylinda would hold the book up again and continue reading. This is how it went.