this world is small

i was umping a game last week and one of the players on one of the teams was someone i just met in my second last semester of school in Children's Literature. she'd not a church-goer but she was invited to play for "Anointed". the following day (sunday) "Anointed" umpired our game, and i got to chat a bit with their coach, Jo, again. one of the assisting umpires knew most of the players on our team because they all go to University of Waterloo. she didn't recognize me, even though i called her out for leading off at second base, until i reminded her.

the next day (monday), i went to Markville Mall to take a gander at some day packs, as my trusty red one (for skates and other miscellany, like Longlac and camping and high school) was beginning to deteriorate. as i began my quest, i spied out of the corner of my eye someone that looked like Jo in the distance, talking to a friend. as i returned my attention to my quest it looked like she saw me too, and seemed to have a moment of fuzzy recognition as well. i didn't turn back to confirm it on account of aforementioned quest (that did not bear fruit).

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i took Cheryl to Pacific Mall today to see if we could (miraculously) find a USB data cable for her Sandisk Sansa C-140 MP3 player, since she left it back home in Longlac. we trawled the mall for about an hour, going past every store and talking to the people behind the counters of the techier stores. i did not play the usual Pacific Mall games of a) counting cellphone stores (tough) b) counting bubble tea stores (tougher) c) counting pirated DVD stores (toughest).

after sufficient boredom and not finding what we came for, i decided to take her over to Market Village to see if we could find soprano-melissa where she works. on the way over in the toaster oven heat, two girls walked past. one looked mildly familiar and i thought, hey, is that Mary from UHS where i taught grade 11 physics two summers ago? it wasn't. so we trundled into the slightly air conditioned older sister of Pacific Mall and quickly identified the place that soprano melissa worked. it was upstairs.

turning towards the place after getting off the escalator i make eye contact with Mary from UHS where i taught grade 11 physics two summers ago, who was with her mom and little sister. what a coinky-dink. we small-talked for a bit -- where she would be going for university, etc; i didn't tell her i was just thinking of her (not in THAT way) because that would sound three shades creepier than i normally try to project. anyways, this was actually the third time bumping into her. the first was at the entrance of T&T early last year; the second was at TJCAC during the program that followed Project T-dot last summer.

after that we found melissa fairly easily; she was standing at the reception desk. we then went back to Pacific Mall to get some bubble tea from Food Jungle (real fruit, not powder) because she had a discount card (10% off!). there we bumped into Kelvin and his parents who were just out for a summer afternoon something.