Operation: Enduring Tofu is my ongoing saga discussing my emergence into vegetarianism — but mostly my journey to find the person responsible for my vegetarian lifestyle nearly two decades ago. If you’d like to catch up, you can do so by reading:
Chapter I: The Legend of Shiny – An Introduction
Chapter II: Acquired Memories
Chapter III: The Celery Stalk
Intermission: a short video (not by me)
Chapter IV: The Name Game
Chapter V – First Contact
A few weeks had passed since I left that voicemail message on the voicemail which, as far as I could guess, belonged to the Sparkles household. And by that, I mean the parents of Robin, the 30-something woman with whom I was trying to connect after almost twenty years. I was contemplating calling back exactly one month later and trying to get a live person. You know — so I could realize rejection in person rather than not knowing due to unanswered messages.
I didn’t have to wait. however. Because I received this email* before the month was up:
Hi Shiny. I got your message from my mother last week. Very funny timing. I was hanging out with *another participant from the trip* and we were reminiscing about *the summer trip* and your name came up. Hope you are well.
And thenshe told me a little about her life, her professional career (which is rather impressive!), her family (married for almost a decade, two kids), and life in general. Contact had been made!
My phone call had worked. 🙂
I wrote her back. I talked about my life a bit. I talked about the folks with whom I had kept in touch for a few years, eventually letting the relationships fade over the years. And then I moved the discussion to the topic at hand.
Well, no. Not really. This was something I specifically wanted to do over the phone. So I wrote the following:
I have a favor to ask of you, actually -- one which was the main reason I set out to find you in the first place: I've been been doing a bit of writing as a hobby recently. And I'm writing an article about shared experiences and selective memory. (It's not an academic paper; it's more of an informal, freelance human interest piece.) Do you think you and I could schedule a time to talk on the phone so I can get some of your recollections of the summer we were on *the summer program we were on*? Please let me know if this is something we might be able to arrange.
I mean, I didn’t say specifically it was a blog. And who could blame me? Bloggers are weird and creepy and stuff. Trust me — I’ve met some of them. And I didn’t delve into the whole topic of vegetarianism. But that can wait for the phone call — if she were to agree to it.
We exchanged some more emails — and she gave me her number! Her schedule with work and travel, however, is extremely busy; she was out of the country this past weekend. But she said I could call her…
… which I did this evening.
Unfortunately, she had a last-minute work thing, so we couldn’t speak for much more than a minute. But we agreed to talk again next week. She sounds exactly the same, and she mentioned the same about me. It was exciting for a good 85 seconds of telephone conversation!
We’ll see what the next conversation brings. Until next time…
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5 users responded in this post
I still love the way that you’ve used the term “article” here, haha. Not that there’s anything wrong with that….
Shoot, I’ve been known to say that I write articles for an online source, especially when talking to my family. Anydiddle…good luck with the next call! I can’t wait to see if it actually changes your life. 🙂
Hillys last blog post..Bring On The Tequila….
Yay! I’m glad you got in touch with her.
I have a ‘friend who writes for a website’ when I am dragging info out of people. They look at me like I am nuts and then say in cracked voices from hell – ‘Website or blog?’
Yes, we are all weird and creepy and definitely stuff
Becs last blog post..Avoidance
You crazy man! you crazy.
[…] Operation: Enduring Tofu chronicles the saga which began nineteen years ago when I became a vegetarian because I met this cute girl named Robin who was one. I’ve been attempting to contact her as I re-evaluate this decision in my life. You can see how the story unfolded here: Chapter I: The Legend of Shiny – An Introduction Chapter II: Acquired Memories Chapter III: The Celery Stalk Intermission: a short video (not by me) Chapter IV: The Name Game Chapter V: First Contact […]
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