Well, that was interesting.

I went to a party last night. I don't attend parties as a rule. I attend birthday parties for family and friends; but, this was a bunch of strangers. Specifically, it was a retirement for a dear friend, someone I admire greatly. She likes Bourbon so I bought her a very nice one and had agreed to have a shot with her. I haven't had hard alcohol in a very long time so I rented a room at the hotel where the party was going on. I try and actually follow my own advice and will not drink and drive.

Well, I had a number of drinks and was sober anyways; but, not everyone else was. The host (she paid for her own retirement party, my kind of gal) ended the night for her by falling down the stairs (not because she had been drinking, she can hold her liquor and was sober as a judge) and injuring herself. I ended up being the last person there because I had a room. I also ended up with another lady passing out in my room, so I went and picked up cigarettes and left her to sleep. I left with another lady I have known for a very long time and we had a fascinating conversation. By the time the person sleeping in my room woke up and found us outside (you cannot smoke in the rooms), it was 6:30 in the morning and the sun was rising. The lady that woke up had lost her glasses the night before and oddly enough we were able to find them on the patio.

Now that we have the trivia out of the way I want to talk about the party. I had brought the person who was retiring to the party in my car and there were only a couple of people there including a friend. I left the honoree to talk to her other friends in one area and left to go to another area and have a smoke with my friend who had arrived early. He had run out of cigarettes and I ended up giving others most of my smokes. Someone that we did not know decided to join us and demonstrated and attraction for the guy I was with, problem was that she was married and had come with her husband. I should have known it would get weird then.

The pimpernel ended up with all the crazies at my table in the back. It was the funnest room at the event. It was in fact non-stop jokes and stories. The group around my table just kept getting larger and larger. It was about half people that knew me and half people that did not. Somehow the people that knew me began speaking well of me to the strangers. I blushed more than once. I ended up sort of being the belle of the ball. I do not usually socialize outside of close friends and family and it was odd to have people that did not know me, tell me how I was interesting and having people that knew me only in a business setting tell me they did not know I was so frivolous and fun in a social setting.

I met a bunch of new people and they were all interesting and fun as is my friend the honoree. I expected nothing less of her friends. People I knew and did not know were talking about my understanding of my industry and people gave me their cards. It was all very unusual for me. None of this is relavent to where I am going in this post; but, it sets the context.

Anyways, the party went on into the morning and mine was the last table with anyone at it, including the honoree and nobody at the table seemed to be in a hurry to leave, I had a room so I could care less about getting home.The bar closes and we continued talking. The honoree decided to use the ladies room, which was downstairs, and tripped on the stairs (I reiterate, she was level headed and did not fall because she had a couple of drinks, I saw her before as did others and we all agreed on this including people who did not drink all night).

I will now get to the point, sort of. After the honoree fell and was taken away in an ambulance (which most of the remaining party goers did not know), there ended up being three of us. One of us was the lady that went to sleep on my bed and the other was a lady I have known for decades; but, was not particularly close to. I really do not socialize outside of very close friends and family. I certainly do not reveal much about myself outside of that group. As it was just the two of us and we flipped out by how the night had gone, we chatted away and got to know each other on a deeper level than we had in all the years we have known each other.

We ended up with her asking me something about my heart attacks and for some reason I felt it was okay to tell her about my NDE. Turns out she had a similar experience without the death part. It made her very spiritual, that was it's effect on her. Somehow that made me feel more comfortable to talk about my experience. Her experience apparently gave her a deeper understanding of God and accepting of our own imperfections, her words more or less, not mine. We exchanged very personal and sensitive information, things I have not even written about on this blog. It felt really good to touch deeper another soul.

The pimpernel does not like drama or excitement and this was an interesting night; but, the best part was getting to know this person on a deeper and more open level. I do not believe God brings people into our lives by accident, the brings them in for us and for them. I actually told her about the love of my life, how I knew her and she passed away at a very in-opportune moment. She got it and gave me some very good insight into the spiritual side of the situation.

I went to bed sometime around 6:30 and had till 12:30 to sleep with a wake up call. I got a call, woke up, found out my friend was okay at 8:30. I had less than 2 hours sleep; but, decided to go home. It is now about 11 o'clock, I am at home and beyond tired. I am about to go back to bed if I can. It was an interesting night.