My mom always said “You should always try to make a good impression, especially on the first meeting, because you never get another chance at a first impression”. If I had to think about my first impression style, it would be to make a splash, like a big old cannonball into the pool. The opposite being a style of an Olympic-type diver. They make a stealth entrance so quiet with a clean entry in the pool. To each his own. The splash is my style. This is depending on the situation of course.
I managed to make a memorable first impression on a wonderful artist named Rick Thomas. I was in the James Bay Starbucks meeting a friend and was introduced to Rick. We were having a grand time discussing this, that and the other thing when I dropped my hot chocolate. What made it worse was I tried to recover the slip from my hand creating a full-on liquid missile headed straight to Rick’s pants. If I was a scorekeeper of the hot chocolate consumption, I would say 15% got in my belly (darn, wish I had chugged a bit more of it!), 55% created a beautiful abstract print on Rick’s pants, socks and shoes and the final 30% landed on the floor of Starbucks. Hello can you say “wet clean up in aisle three” fast three times! It was bad… really bad! We poured hot chocolate out of Rick’s shoe during the clean up! Truth be told, looking at the disaster I had created, I honestly thought his cotton bad boy socks would have soaked it all up. But no.
Rick Thomas took it like the champion he is. I cleaned up his shoes. Emptying and cleaning the majority of chocolate mess in and off the shoes. The pants and socks were really a write-off. I offered to go to the store next door for stain remover. I offered to buy him new pants. He declined my offers. What happened next I did not expect. He invited me to his Christmas party! He was having an open house the next day. He said he would be delighted if I showed up with or without beverages…lol.
So the next day I went to his open house. I was intrigued on learning and seeing more of his work of art. I was not disappointed. His work displayed in his home was fabulous! And, so was being introduced to his friends and colleagues that were in attendance.
I could go on to describe his work, but as the saying goes “a picture is worth 1000 words”. Check out his blog is http://rickthomasart.blogspot.ca . I was intrigued by his figure studies. How they flow. And the contrast with the detail work of the “old girls” referring to the old houses in the James Bay area. Feel free to explore his site to see what I mean.
In the meantime. I doubt the pants were salvageable but they smelled great And perhaps they will become his painting pants to create more magic, with eau de chocolat…
Rick is heading off to Paris to sketch in the Spring. How wicked cool awesome is that! Sadly, Rick absolutely can’t stand the word Awesome. I responded “that is fine because I am the Princess of Awesomeness. There is a difference”. If you ever have a chance to meet Rick….say “awesome” a lot and you know the chocolate-spilling Princess of Awesomeness!
Happy accidents… how full of AWESOMENESS is that? Tell us your tales of Awesomeness!