Over the years I daresay that we have invited hundreds of people to dinner, and those of you who have come, know that I politely ask everyone to sign the guest book. (I’m now on volume 7!) This was a tradition we started with the guest book from our wedding in 1977 and even though Carl is now gone, I am continuing the tradition of having people over for dinner and having them sign the guest book.

In the post I wrote last week about visiting Tanglewood as part of the Organ Historical Society convention, you may remember that I was sitting on the bus and a woman came up to ask if the seat next to me was taken.

“I boarded the bus at 7:45 am this morning, and a woman came by and asked if anyone was sitting next to me. No, I said, and she and I engaged in conversations all day, on and off the bus (We didn’t get back to the hotel until 11:00 pm!) It turns out that she was a student of Marilyn Mason — and I told her the other person from Honolulu at this convention, Samuel Lam, was also a student of hers. Well! it turns out that my new friend Renate McLaughlin accompanied Marilyn Mason on her trip to Hawaii in 2007 and she remembered visiting an apartment with a fortepiano in it! Well, guess what— that must have been my apartment because we had Honolulu’s only fortepiano!! And both of us marveled at the random serendipity of two people meeting on a bus, having met seven years before, but not having any memory of it!!

Actually it turned out to be eight years ago that Marilyn Mason came to Hawaii, so this morning I looked through the guest book and there I found the entry!

Yes, Renate remembered visiting the apartment with the fortepiano in it, but what are the odds that we would randomly sit next to each other on a bus, and have no memories of meeting before — and she had visited my apartment eight years ago?!

Small world, eh?!