Catching up

I am still trying to catch up on all the stuff that got neglected while I was trying to be a Barackstar. LOL Rob got home from school last night and today he helped me get the Halloween decorations taken down and put away and my laundry room cleaned up. In another 2 weeks or so we will be dragging out all the Christmas stuff but in the meantime I can do laundry in there and get to the food shelves and the fridge, so I'm happy.

I got an email today from a friend that I met while volunteering with the DFL. Igor is something of a celebrity here in Rochester. I have known of him for almost as long as I've lived here. Periodically there are newspaper articles about him and if you run into him while shopping he is hard to miss, but I had never had the opportunity to meet him until this fall.



This is Igor (with Pippa, who loves him). He is 7 feet 8 inches tall. That, my friends, is tall. Yes, he has to duck when he walks through a door. Yes, he has to have furniture that is scaled for him. Yes, he is a big guy. You can see all that when you look at him.

But here is what you cannot see, what you have to learn, slowly, by getting to know him: he is a diva. I don't mean that in a negative way (since I am something of a diva myself), just that he is particular about things, he likes them to be a certain way, and he gets frustrated if they are not the way he likes them. When I was volunteering in the office I tried to make things the way he liked them. (Do YOU want a guy that big to be mad at you? Me either. LOL) Another thing you can't see is that he really doesn't like being treated like he is different. I mean, he KNOWS he is not like most people, but he is much more comfortable if you just treat him like a regular guy. He is slow to warm to people, I think slow to trust. He loves his mom (who is a lovely woman with a 1,000-watt smile), and his dog, Tarzan. He is a softy. He talks baby talk to Pippa and holds her like a baby and she loves all of it. He is a hard worker -- he spent many hours at the DFL doing data entry, answering phones, and keeping all of us entertained.

Today he commented on my blog, asking for that photo above. I took it when Pippa came to visit him just before the election. He was having a bad day and needed a little boost. I told him I'd send the photo and just never got around to it. I'm glad he stopped by my little corner of the web, and glad he reminded me. I hope at some point I will catch up with all the stuff I have been meaning to but at least he has his picture now.


It's hard to make friends with people who are well known. They often are skeptical and distrustful; do you like me for me? Or because I attract attention? But this volunteer thing has given me the opportunity to meet a guy who is genuine, funny, friendly and intelligent. Plus my kids think he's a rock star. So I hope I can continue to call him my friend.

He is in the hospital right now, and I know he would appreciate any good thoughts or prayers on his behalf. He is someone who likes to DO stuff, not lay around and be sick. It just isn't his style. So I hope you are up and around soon, my friend.

And I hope you don't mind me calling you my friend, but it's never a bad thing to be on the good side of a guy who's over 7 feet tall. Just sayin'.