Beyond Hellonika

I've been enjoying artist Nancy Bea Miller's blog for a while now. And she's been enjoying mine! [blushes] So I was thrilled when the stars aligned earlier this month to permit me to attend her latest show down in Philly. Her work in this exhibit was mostly pieces of cake – well, paintings of pieces of cake – with a small basket of cherry tomatoes (behind us in the photo above) thrown in for good measure. (Of course my favorite piece was the one not like the others. So predictable.)

I find her work and her way of moving through the world inspiring. So I was going to blogroll her in my "inspiration" category. But now that we've actually MET, I get to bump her up to "lucky to know 'em." I didn't tell her I was planning to attend, in case it didn't work out, but then, when I got there, realized that I didn't know what she looked like. So I looked for someone who looked like her son (whose picture I'd seen on her blog), and it all worked out. We had a good chat, smiling all the while at the improbability of it all.

~

Last week, I was talking with someone at my evening presentation in Princeton about the usefulness of Yiddish words, and she mentioned that her grandmother had coined a few words of faux-Yiddish... words that she felt a need for, and so had uttered into existence. One of these words was "hellonika," used to describe the kind of acquaintance who never quite makes it past the point of "hello's"... someone you'd greet, but who you would probably not describe as a friend.

I'm so pleased to have this new and useful word to add to my vocabulary. And I'm even happier to have moved beyond the hellonika stage with Nancy.

Hi, Nancy! [waves, grinning]