A Colossal Meeting

Among the other delights of our trip was the fact that I got to have lunch with long-time Llama compadre, The Colossus. Here is his description of things:

I got to meet Robbo the Llama today; he and his wife (and the Llama-ettes) were returning from their annual peregrination to and from Maine; I live near a crossroads on that journey and we got to enjoy lunch together.

Robbo paid; much to my chagrin.

He is much as I imagined; his blog persona and he are very similar beings -- though he is, naturally, not a Llama -- a smart and erudite man -- and polite, for he put up with my wandering conversation and my tendency, when enthused, to monopolize a conversation with perfect deportment. A good man. His wife is lovely, and the Llama-ettes are clearly great kids, though doubtless a handful.

There is no place on the blogosphere I go to more often, or with more expectation of finding humor and common sense.

I wish I had more time to blog; of late my blogging has been far too intermittent and brief; but getting to finally meet a hero of mine makes me pine for it more than ever. We talked -- or rather I talked, and he listened politely -- about the bloggers we haven't had time to read enough lately, and I fear my list was shockingly long. Oh, to have more time in the day.

I repost this here not to flatter myself (it's all too kind, anyway), but because Colossus' remarks about blogging vs. real-life personae got me musing: I've met about a dozen or so bloggers in the past few years, people whose sites I read regularly, and I can't think of a single one who was really very much different at all in real life than he or she came across on-line. I suppose that one simply cannot keep up that much of an act, and that writing day to day exposes more of one's real character than might be realized.

The Colossus is no exception: he's a big, affable guy, immediately recognizable as "good". For instance, while he was "chagrinned" that we picked up lunch, what he doesn't tell you is that we had originally planned to meet him on our way up, but got caught in such wretched traffic that we had to, in effect, blow him off. And coming back, we called him about half a dozen times, as our E.T.A. to his waypoint kept shifting backwards, again based on the traffic. As the Missus apologized for keeping him hanging about yet again, he simply laughed and said, "I've got a book."

As for the conversation, it was just the sort of pleasant, polite and thoughtful stuff I've come to expect from reading his site, and I only hope I did not appear too inattentive, as I kept swinging round to level a supervisory eye at the Llama-ettes and head off any potential mayhem. And however hurried things were owing to our schedule, I am very happy that we were able to meet up.

Yip! Yip!