Lois, you rock!
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I am wearing this teal jacket in honor of Lois. Her favorite car, the racing Jaguar was teal. Our love of cars was one of the things that bonded us as friends. She was a Nordstrom kind of girl, and I was a Home Depot kind of girl, but when it came to cars, we were in sync and it was the reason we met. I was sitting in the Great American cafeteria having my lunch in late December. I had driven in that morning in my 45 year old Mercedes Benz and had a Christmas wreath on my radiator. Lois approached my table with an, "Excuse me". I knew of Lois because she had a reputation of a no-nonsense, take-charge kind of broad. People were afraid of her, but they respected her. Whatever she said, she did, and she was great at fixing things. She always found a solution and loved solving things, like she loved doing her puzzles. I particularly loved her bling bling. She had style and she had class. The first thing that crossed my mind that day, was, I knew who she was, but how did she know who I was? Many years later, when I would tell this story of how we met, she remarked, "How many people drive an old Mercedes with jewelry on their car?" So that day in the cafeteria, with a great deal of curosity, I responded to her excuse me with a "Hi! Do you want to sit down?" Lois sat down and began questioning me about my car, and commented that she drove a 280 SL Mercedes. I told her I had one of those too and thought it was the bomb! We discussed the features and how much we loved our cars, the wood steering wheel, leather seats, power everything, and then she leaned over in a conspiratorial tone and asked, "Where is the gas cap?" I giggled and told her, "Why behind the license plate of course. You just pull it down. It might be locked, but that was all there was to it." It was then she offered to buy me lunch if I would go with her to the gas station and teach her how to pump gas. I said sure, but you don't have to buy me lunch, and there is full serve if she was in a jam. She said no she didn't want to go to full serve, because her husband would kill her if she paid full price. So the next day rolls around, and we get into her car and proceed to the gas station. We got out and I showed her how to fill her tank, pay her bill, and she exclaimed with exuberance, "That was so easy, let's go have lunch!" I suggested Black Angus and off we went for a steak sandwich. It was during lunch that I finally mustered up the courage to ask her how was it that she didn't know how to fill her car with gas? The conversation went like this: "Well, Rudy, that's my husband, always fills the cars with gas." "So why didn't Rudy do it this time?" "Because he is in Holland. He called me last night and said he had to stay over a couple more days. I don't have anymore gas. He's been there for almost a month." "So what have you been doing for gas?" "I just drive a different car everyday." "How many cars do you have?" "I donŐt know, let's see there's the Volvo, a Cadillac, a Honda, a Jaguar, oh yeah and the Mercedes. I just picked the Mercedes to fill because I knew you drove one. The Jaguar has two tanks I think." "Are they all out of gas?" (Big Lois pause.) "Yeah, pretty much." And so it began, our twenty year relationship of making fun of each other and laughing at the world. She gave a whole new definition to 'dah'. She was truly the first valley girl. I will continue to have many pant-peeing minutes as I remember all the glorious times we had together and the laughing until we started crying. So, although this is a very sad day, it will be far outweighed by the thousands of moments that we had together. Lois, you rock! Current page: www.timelycomputerstuff.com/remembrance/kath.html 
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