world famous!

She-ra and I had coffee this morning.

Sorry, I lie. I had tea. Same difference. We met at Buckies and shed tears over dear doggie's passing.

Somehow our conversation worked its way around to being world famous. It made me laugh and I could recount all these instances that proved that yes, when I was younger, back in The Day, I was really world-famous!

For example:

First trip out of the country, I go to Japan. I landed in Narita Airport in 1990 and right there, in the middle of one of the busiest airports in the world, "Mapi Princesa (insert first and last name here...I had yet to set foot in South America, let alone MaPi), hello!" Old classmate of mine.

Walking down the street in Guayaquil, Ecuador, 1992. City of about 3 million. With my friend Patsy, I had not been able to get the taxi for the fare that I should have been able to get it for...I knew how much it cost and nobody would give it to me that night...too much "gringa" factor that night, evidently, working against me. So my 20 year old pride in check, I said, "Ok, Pats, we're walking. No answering anyone (for our safety since we were walking in the dark...purely stupid thing to do in Guayaquil but hey...I can tell you STORIES of even more stupid things I did there) unless they say our name." Because, of course, due to the gringa factor, EVERYONE and their brother honked as they passed us on the road. And of course, someone came driving up along side us and said, "¡Hola, Mapi, ¿qué tal? ¿Adónde andas?" Hi, MaPi, what's up? Where ya' heading?

At a military parade that same fall in Guayaquil, three of us were standing alongside the road watching the military commemorate the independence of the city of Guayaquil. Luis, our professor of Sociology at the Tecnológico, always took us on various "field trips" throughout the area and one of them took us aboard the Buque Escuela Guayas, a naval training vessel harbored on the Río Guayas. So that day we got to know some of the sailors on board. Of course, those same guys saw us at the parade and came all the way back around from the end of the route and said, "Hey, Mapi, wanna join us out on the boat for a big party?" Knowing better, I declined.

In the new year of 1996, while on the island of Koh Samui, Thailand after having brought in the New Year deathly ill on freshwater shrimp, I started feeling better and joined my friends on a hike through the jungle, up some waterfalls and felt wonderful. As we were hiking through the palms and the overgrown brush, I heard a voice call through the jungle, "Mapi Princesa, is that you???" A gal from Oregon. Dude, small world.

In 1997, when my parents came to visit me in my final year in Japan, my papa-chan and Ko-chan took me to Narita airport all the way from my town to pick them up, bring us all into Tokyo, treat us to dinner and then get us to the hotel (the same in which occured certain toilet adventures already spoken of). I had arranged with a friend's father, who was a hotel entrepreneur, a special deal for my parents' stay in the various cities I was taking them to visit; namely Tokyo, Hiroshima and Kyoto. It was quite convenient. And as we were from rural Japan, the sticks so to speak, although Ko-chan was a Tokyo To-dai graduate (the Japan equivalent of Hah-vahd), they weren't all that used to being back in the Big City. So they about fell over when, as we walked around the block a man they had never seen before bowed to me and said, "Mapi-さんですか。Mapi-san desuka? Mapi, is that you? (first name only). As Ko-chan laughed uncontrollably, Papa-chan said, "Mapi-san is famous everywhere, not just in Nakanojo!"

Later that same vacation, after touring Beijing and Shanghai, I took my family to Hong Kong. I was expecting to meet up with a Chinese-Scottish friend of mine there, but my family didn't realize that but were about blown out of their minds when she came up to me on the street in Kowloon and gave me a hug, "MaPi, how are you?"

When in Sweden in 2001, I was visiting with the matron of the residence hall in which we lived that year as my husband completed his masters degree. A man entered, having heard my obviously American accent, something you don't hear often in Sweden, and sat down to talk to us. I asked where he was from, he said Minnesota. I said, that's funny, my mother's side is all from Minnesota. "Oh, what part?" he asked. "Duluth area." "Really, I'm from that region myself...I'm from Grand Rapids." Well, I never usually say Grand Rapids because everyone only knows of Grand Rapids, Michigan, not Grand Rapids, Minnesota. "That's where my family is from!" "What's the last name?" And I told him my mother's maiden name, as it was her father's family that is all from there. And he said, "Richard V?" and I responded, "Uncle Dick!" He was an old classmate of my great-uncle and knew my entire family from back there, and even returned, made it a point to go and see Uncle Dick and tell him he had "run into me" in Sweden.

Now...I go to the mall with my six-going-on-sixteen daughter K and I don't see one single soul I know--but boy, my daughter gets greeted! I am now The Mother of K and C.

I suppose I had my turn. Now it is time to let them shine...and follow in the famous footsteps of their mother! :)