It's a small world after all

Now that you have the theme song from a Dinseyworld ride in your head :-) let me tell you about something that happened to me yesterday.

Marc and I drove up to the NATO base in Geilenkirchen Germany where we have a P.O. Box. It's about 240km away. We do "the mail run" about 3 times a year thanks to the rota that we have with all the other Canadians.

The post office (until the 1st of May) is in a building that also houses other Canadian services - which we knew nothing about to be honest - in the 5 years we've been going up we've never ventured down that end of the hall.

Well yesterday we were chatting with the postie (a HABS fan by the way, we like to tease Marc) and I complimented him on his shirt - a red golf shirt with a "support our troops" logo. As we were about to leave the customer in line behind us told me that you could buy the shirts, baseball caps etc down the hall in the Canadian services area. So I figured what the heck and wandered down there.

There was a group of women sitting around a table and one got up to come and help me - we went through to another section, looked at the selection (I got a t-shirt, Marc a ball cap) and were in the process of paying when another woman walks in.

"I know you from somewhere" she says and walks over to me.

I am about to politely say "I think you've mistaken me for someone else" (I mean, we're not military, I know they bump into each other) when I take a good look at her face. And realize that I DO know her.

It took me about 10 seconds to place her (yes, small miracle for me) and as her name came back to me I said "Catherine... Catherine Q______!" just as she said "Tracy!"

I worked with this woman - 17 years ago in Montreal, for about 6 months. The last time I saw her was in the Lionel Groulx Metro station about 16 years ago, and I remember (now) her telling me she was getting married to someone in the Canadian Forces. She arrived at GK a month ago.

We chatted for a bit and have made plans to get together - them come here, us meet up next time we go up, meet halfway - still to be defined. I'm looking forward to it (and yes, for those of you wondering, she's a West Island girl like me :-) )

I just can't get over the chances of us actually meeting up - We go up 3 times a year and I have never walked down that hall before. It was the first time she'd gone to the coffee morning since she arrived. What are the chances??

And I am wondering something else... I can't remember things that happened last week, but I can place someone I haven't seen in 16 years in about 10 seconds... isn't short term memory loss a sign of old age?? Or was I just acessing "pre-baby" files :-)