The Cookie Story
Dec. 21st, 2021 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elisemSo I promised you the cookie story. Here it is.
If you read the earlier posts about the Wheel of Time, written by the person the world knew as Robert Jordan and I knew as Mike's and my friend Jim, you've already heard about how I was down in Charleston for Jim's funeral, and in the course of looking at some on-line tributes I found Brandon Sanderson's lovely piece, and felt like I really should print it out right then and go put it in Harriet's hands. This particular errand very much felt like It Needed Doing, and I happened to be handy to whatever part of the Universe was assigning errands right then. So I did. (When I get an urgent feeling like that, it is a good idea to cooperate with it early. Friends and I have jokes about how with such things, one wants to avoid waiting until the Universe says DON'T MAKE ME HAVE TO SHOUT.)
Anyhow, that particular nudge came along with an inexplicable but perfectly calm certainty that this person was the person who would be able to finish Jim's story properly. Which was disconcerting, because ... well, see next paragraph; we were all in grief and kind of shell shocked. Anyhow, I said to the nudge, all right, yes, fine, I am printing this thing out and putting it in Harriet's hands and saying "I think you ought to see this." And that was the sum total of anything I did. I was the nameless person in the play who moves Object A from Place B to Person C in the service of the plot.
All of this was in a house full of mourning and love. Generally most of us were in that shocked place that grief can put people, and we were all looking after each other as best we could. There were a lot of supportive messages and condolences coming in, and hugs being delivered. A number of people came back to the house after the morning memorial service, and part of the reason I went out to the back offices and found some online tributes to print out is that I was feeling rather peopled out, and figured I should assign myself something solitary to do elsewhere so that I'd be able to people again when we went off to the cemetery later in the afternoon.
So I gave the printout of Brandon's writing to Harriet. And then I went back to the computer in the office and sent an email to my friend Jenett to tell her about the nudge and the printout and the calm inexplicable conviction of Oh That's How That Is Then, because if that whole thing turned out to unfold that way, I was going to really wonder if I dreamt it if I didn't tell somebody back when it happened, if you know what I mean. And as you all know, it did in fact unfold that way. It would have found a way to unfold that way with some other errand runner, but I happened to be errand-adjacent, so that's how it went.
Weeks later after everything was decided, Harriet said it had been fortuitous for Brandon that I printed his piece out and gave it to her. I answered that Brandon owed me a drink.
"He's a Mormon, dear; they don't drink," she said.
I said, "Oh! Right. OK then, he owes me a cookie." And we laughed about that.
When I came down to Charleston for the book release, we told Brandon about the cookie thing and "He's a Mormon, dear," and he laughed about it with us too.
And then I went home to Minnesota. And a few days later, a delivery truck pulls up, and the driver brings me this box. I open the box, and there's a smaller fancy box inside with a note and a bunch of something all wrapped up. The note was from Brandon, and it was very sweet. He said he owed me more than just a cookie, and he hoped I'd enjoy these. "These" were a bunch of fresh baked gourmet cookies from the Carolina Cookie Company, where he'd gotten me a year's subscription to the Cookie of the Month Club. Really good cookies, too. I wound up sharing each month's installment with various friends, because this was a seriously huge monthly package of cookielicious fun. We all toasted Brandon in absentia each time with our glasses of milk and said "Thank you, Brandon!"
And that's the cookie story.
(You can try them yourself if you want. If you get something from my year-end sale this next week, you'll get a cookie from the Carolina Cookie Company, who baked up some yummy soft gingerbread and put them into individual packages with my Lioness biz info. I sprang for their Corporate Cookie Package thingie, and it is both beautiful and tasty. Offer good while supplies last. I intend to stash a few for myself, too, because om nom nom.)
If you read the earlier posts about the Wheel of Time, written by the person the world knew as Robert Jordan and I knew as Mike's and my friend Jim, you've already heard about how I was down in Charleston for Jim's funeral, and in the course of looking at some on-line tributes I found Brandon Sanderson's lovely piece, and felt like I really should print it out right then and go put it in Harriet's hands. This particular errand very much felt like It Needed Doing, and I happened to be handy to whatever part of the Universe was assigning errands right then. So I did. (When I get an urgent feeling like that, it is a good idea to cooperate with it early. Friends and I have jokes about how with such things, one wants to avoid waiting until the Universe says DON'T MAKE ME HAVE TO SHOUT.)
Anyhow, that particular nudge came along with an inexplicable but perfectly calm certainty that this person was the person who would be able to finish Jim's story properly. Which was disconcerting, because ... well, see next paragraph; we were all in grief and kind of shell shocked. Anyhow, I said to the nudge, all right, yes, fine, I am printing this thing out and putting it in Harriet's hands and saying "I think you ought to see this." And that was the sum total of anything I did. I was the nameless person in the play who moves Object A from Place B to Person C in the service of the plot.
All of this was in a house full of mourning and love. Generally most of us were in that shocked place that grief can put people, and we were all looking after each other as best we could. There were a lot of supportive messages and condolences coming in, and hugs being delivered. A number of people came back to the house after the morning memorial service, and part of the reason I went out to the back offices and found some online tributes to print out is that I was feeling rather peopled out, and figured I should assign myself something solitary to do elsewhere so that I'd be able to people again when we went off to the cemetery later in the afternoon.
So I gave the printout of Brandon's writing to Harriet. And then I went back to the computer in the office and sent an email to my friend Jenett to tell her about the nudge and the printout and the calm inexplicable conviction of Oh That's How That Is Then, because if that whole thing turned out to unfold that way, I was going to really wonder if I dreamt it if I didn't tell somebody back when it happened, if you know what I mean. And as you all know, it did in fact unfold that way. It would have found a way to unfold that way with some other errand runner, but I happened to be errand-adjacent, so that's how it went.
Weeks later after everything was decided, Harriet said it had been fortuitous for Brandon that I printed his piece out and gave it to her. I answered that Brandon owed me a drink.
"He's a Mormon, dear; they don't drink," she said.
I said, "Oh! Right. OK then, he owes me a cookie." And we laughed about that.
When I came down to Charleston for the book release, we told Brandon about the cookie thing and "He's a Mormon, dear," and he laughed about it with us too.
And then I went home to Minnesota. And a few days later, a delivery truck pulls up, and the driver brings me this box. I open the box, and there's a smaller fancy box inside with a note and a bunch of something all wrapped up. The note was from Brandon, and it was very sweet. He said he owed me more than just a cookie, and he hoped I'd enjoy these. "These" were a bunch of fresh baked gourmet cookies from the Carolina Cookie Company, where he'd gotten me a year's subscription to the Cookie of the Month Club. Really good cookies, too. I wound up sharing each month's installment with various friends, because this was a seriously huge monthly package of cookielicious fun. We all toasted Brandon in absentia each time with our glasses of milk and said "Thank you, Brandon!"
And that's the cookie story.
(You can try them yourself if you want. If you get something from my year-end sale this next week, you'll get a cookie from the Carolina Cookie Company, who baked up some yummy soft gingerbread and put them into individual packages with my Lioness biz info. I sprang for their Corporate Cookie Package thingie, and it is both beautiful and tasty. Offer good while supplies last. I intend to stash a few for myself, too, because om nom nom.)
