Holiday get togethers

What's worse?

A person who doesn't remember your name after having met you for the third time?

Or a person who misspells your name, while claiming to be a serious writer?

Muriel is neither of these people.

I was happy then to go to Muriel's holiday party the other night to celebrate her release from the hospital and to see how much progress she's made.

Muriel sang several songs for us, romantic ballads, not Christmas carols, thank God. Singing is part of her speech therapy. Muriel has a nice clear voice, and she got most of the words right.

Earlier, I'd been to a party where no one remembered my name. I decided not to remember each and every one of their names as well. Then I got an email from a writer I was doing business with, and saw that she'd misspelled my last name.

By the time I got to Muriel's I'd forgotten who I was. The apartment in The Mission was really sweet, with a nice little fire in the fireplace. Susie sat on the living room floor, playing her guitar. Kirk, Muriel's boyfriend, opened a bottle of champagne and brought out a plate of chopped-up wheat bread and pepper jack cheese.

We sat around for an hour or so, talking, listening to Muriel's stories about the hospital and how she'd gradually got her memory and language back, then we all got in to the Honda and drove to the Thai restaurant for dinner.