Meeting Patricia 2

Jose was the first to be introduced as he was the closest, then it was my turn.
Erin's mom, Patricia, or Patty, or Pattie is a beautiful young woman, with a thick head of brownish blonde hair, much lighter than her daughter's. She's a little bit taller as well, both are slim of form, and they favor each other, being easy to tell that they were related. She was dressed in tan slacks and blouse.
"Rick," Erin said, "this is my mother, Pattie."
"Hi Pattie, it's a pleasure to meet you." We shook hands.
"Hi Rick."
"Rick writes a blog, mom. And he gave you a shout out on it."
"Really?"
We moved inside out of the hot sun. I asked Patricia how her flight had been as we made our way to the garden.
"It was good," she replied. "The flight was actually about half empty."
"Really," Erin said.
I detected a slight New Jersian accent, which I thought delightful. I found Patricia to be very bright, like her daughter, funny, open and sympathetic. She reminded me a little of the actress, Edie Falco, from The Soprano's, but prettier.
Of course by now someone had put their laundry out to dry out back. And someone else, or maybe the same person, had locked their bike to a tree right in the cordoned off area of the garden itself.
"Because of Labor Day, mom, we didn't have the Garden Club this week. That's why there are so many leaves."
That was Erin speaking. My mom wasn't there.
"No, it's probably because they fell off the trees." She didn't say that, but it would have been funny if she had.
Erin continued, "Here are our pumpkins. You can come inside, mom."
"Wow."
"We just planted them, what," looking at me, "two or three weeks ago?"
"Yeah, just about." I said.
"And they've grown this much already. And this is corn."
I continued, "And these are peppers."
"I see. Those are really big. Are they hot?" Patricia asked.
"Those little ones are, the red ones. These big ones aren't."
"And these are flowers," Erin said, "that grew these little berries, but no flowers so far."
"And there's our stuffed monkey," I said. Somebody had placed a small stuffed guerilla in one the the tree branches.
Patricia laughed. "Your mascot."
"Yes."
"The Garden Club," Patricia said.
"The Garden Club was here before I got here," Erin stated.
"Erin founded our Cooking Club," I told Patricia. "Which is the most popular of our weekly events."
"That's because there is free food," Erin pointed out.
"And we have yoga."
"Yoga? How great."
I followed them back into the building headed to Erin's office.
"Your hair is getting so long," Patricia told her daughter.
"You think so?"
"Yeah. This place is great. I can't wait to see your office."
She didn't have long to wait. Paul and Candice were still in there talking. So was the SRHT computer guy.
Erin and the computer guy got into some conversation about how he had arrived earlier but no one had been there. Then Erin introduced him to her mother.
"Really," he said. "You look more like sister's." How smooth. This tickled Patricia.
The computer guy shook her hand, then he looked at me and shook mine too, thinking I was Erin's dad.
"You wouldn't be the first one to think Rick was my dad," Erin said. Patricia laughed.
"Sorry sir," he said, "but you all look a lot alike." He left.
I pointed out to Patricia some of the photos Erin has on the wall.
"This was taken at the Huntington Gardens," pointing to the picture of Erin and her goose.
"Where?"
"The Huntington Gardens, just south of Pasadena, on one of our field trips."
"Oh, really."
"Yeah, and these are from the Cooking Club." There were various pictures of different people doing different things at the Cooking Club, including one of Hardy stuffing his face with some kind of sandwich. A couple of me were up these as well. Erin was busying herself with something.
"By the way, I'm Paul." Paul introduced himself.
"Oh, sorry. This is Paul, mom."
"Hi Paul."
I showed Patricia the puzzle we had completed at the Support Group, that for some reason had been sitting in the office ever since.
"And this is a puzzle we completed in our weekly Support Group." I confided in her, "Erin is the absolute best puzzle putter togetherer that I've ever seen."
"Really?"
"Yes. It's amazing to watch really. She finds one piece right after another. It's kind of depressing actually."
"Sit down, mom."
She took the seat next to Candice, who after being introduced, began talking about how smelly her room was because it was right next to a bathroom. Patricia dutifully sympathized.
"Show your mom your new certificate, Erin," I asked her.
"Oh yeah, Rick got me this."
"What is it?"
"It's a certificate that shows that my name is going to Mars."
"Really."
"Do you want one?"
"Sure. Make one for Jessie too. He'll like that."
"I want one," Candice called out. Erin began making copies.
Paul called me to his desk. He had been looking at my blog on his computer, specifically the post about his band. He commented favorably upon it, and the blog as a whole. We came across the picture of Los Angeles on fire at night.
"What city is that?" Candice asked, after Paul turned his monitor around.
"Oh my!" Patricia said when she saw it.
"That's Los Angeles. Patricia, we're currently experiencing that largest wild fire in the county's history," I told her.
"Really. I saw a lot of blackened hills as I flew in."
"That's this fire. It even threatened the broadcast antenna that supports Erin's cell phone, but we avoided that tragedy."
Erin had returned to her case notes.
"Did Erin tell you that the Santa Monica pier is celebrating it's 100th anniversary tonight, and they'll be fireworks."
"No."
"Yeah. Robert Redford and Joan Baez will be there too."
"Oh yeah, I was going to tell you," Erin said.
Time to leave.
"Well it has been a pleasure to meet you, Patricia."
"And a pleasure to meet you, Rick."
"Now you two sister's... I mean you two have fun tonight." Patricia was tickled again.
"Don't encourage her, Rick."
I said goodbye to everybody, and left. I would not be able to go to the pier festivities, as the President was addressing both Houses of Congress last night, and I felt it more important to watch. The Republicans have got so brazen and desperate that one of them shouted out, "You
lie," when he said that no federal funds would be used to pay for health care for illegal immigrants. He was forced to apologize by his own party.
It's hard being a Republican these days. We actually want the country to get better and they just don't get it.
Anyway, all of us here wish Patricia and Erin a happy visit and a pleasant tomorrow.