Monday's Fabulous Moment of the Day...

Since Emily's Monday's Fabulous Moment of the Day didn't happen on Monday, I decided mine shouldn't either.

And so instead we have Monday's (Friday's) Fabulous Moment of the Day. While I fully intend to write a full blog about my amazing weekend at home, complete with pictures, this particular post will be dedicated to a moment which would be more accurately titled, "Monday's (Friday's) Fabulous Moment of My Life."

Friday morning I got up all kinds of early to catch a 7 am flight back home to St. Louis. *Special thanks to Char for taking me to the airport at the insane 5:00 hour.

The morning was pretty standard...

...wait for it...

AHAHAHA. Yeah right...nothing in my life is ever pretty standard.

So I got to the airport at about 5:45 am and was totally half asleep. As I was going through security the girl in front of me gets stopped and they tell her they need to search her purse. Upon carefully gloved searching, they pulled out a butter knife. Let me reiterate...the girl in front of me tried to take a knife onto an airplane. Well, I was half asleep right up until they busted out that puppy at which point, I woke up. She of course starts apologizing profusely and begging for grace. And while I'm wondering what kind of insane consequences she's going to have to suffer for that little slip-up they say, "Ma'am...ma'am...it's okay. You can actually take this with you, we just had to take it out and examine it."

Excuse me, what?

Again, let me say that she had A KNIFE in case any of you were still confused.

She and I both looked at each other wondering if this was a joke, but in fact the security person repeated herself and told her that she could take it with her to which the woman responded, "Actually I would feel better if you just threw it away."

Yeah...me too. I'm still wondering why she had a butter knife in her purse in the first place but whatevs.

Moving on in my day, I boarded the plane and was seated next to a fabulous, large black woman who up until Friday had not been on an airplane in 25 years. Suffice it to say I adored her and I had a really entertaining time sitting next to her. If I could convey the conversation that we had without all of the cursing that came from her being terrified of the plane, I would. But as much as I hate to say it, it just wouldn't be as funny. I will leave that hilariousness to your imagination.

Now to the good stuff...

So I finally made it to St. Louis after a pitstop in Minnesota and I headed downstairs to get my luggage. As I was walking toward the baggage area I smelled an extremely familiar perfume that immediately made Kathy Troccoli pop into my brain.

Okay...rewind...

For those of you who don't know, Kathy Troccoli is pretty much my favorite singer of all time, not necessarily because of her singing. Her music has been incredibly important to me since I was about 11 years old and it's the kind of music that always comes along at the right time in life. Not only that, but I read a book of hers at just the right time of life. I went to a conference and heard her speak at just the right time of life. God has used her gifts to speak to me on many occasions so when her music or writing comes up, I know to listen. I have all of her CDs on my iPod and it's what I turn on when I need some encouragement or when I'm seeking God's presence. That being said, I went to one of her conferences about a year and a half ago at my church in Illinois and had the pleasure of meeting her. I could write out that very long story here, but I won't seeing as how this post is already insanely long.

But the point is that on Friday I smelled the same perfume I had smelled a year and a half ago when I met her at the conference. In my own defense, smell is very closely associated with memory and because that's the only memory I have associated with that smell, that's what popped into my brain.

So as I walked by, my brain said, "Kathy Troccoli." I turned around and she was sitting right there next to the baggage claim with her piano player. I freaked out and just stood there trying to figure out what to do. I would have loved to tell her how God had used her in my life but I knew that would simply take too long. In the meantime my grandma calls and says, "I'm waiting outside for you." I said, "Grandma, my favorite singer of all time is sitting here in the airport and I think I'm going to talk to her but I haven't figured out what to say yet." To which she said, "Well I can't sit here forever or they're going to kick me out. What am I supposed to do?" To which I said, "I don't know. You'll figure it out," and promptly hung up the phone. Luckily, she's very forgiving. As I was standing there I could hear Kathy behind me singing a little under her breath. The longer I stood there the more nervous I got but I finally realized that I could not walk away without saying something. Not to her. To anyone else yes. But not to her.

I took a deep breath and turned around and said, "I don't mean to be rude, but I really just want to tell you how much I love your music. It's very important to me." Her piano player smiled really big and said, "Well there's nothing rude about that." Kathy stood up and introduced herself and asked me what my name was. I told her and had the conversation stopped there all would have been fine, but I went into a little babbling spell where I accidentally said that I had recognized her perfume from one of her conferences last year. Awkward moment #1. Then she asked me if I was in town for her conference to which I had to say, "Um...no." Awkward moment #2. She told me she was actually just working on some new song lyrics for the album she has coming up and just as my brain was racing madly toward Awkward moment #3 in which I would have told her that I had been listening to her sing for the past 5 minutes, I pulled myself together, told her I was looking forward to it and thanked her for letting me interrupt.

And then I walked away to pick up my bags. For a fraction of a second I let myself play the "Oh I should have said this and I definitely should NOT have said that" game but then I realized how bizarre it was that while I've met a lot of famous people, I've never met them outside of the context of what they do. I've never stumbled upon someone famous in an airport before or run into them at a restaurant. And the first time I do, it's Kathy Troccoli, of all people. The person whose music, writing and speaking God has used consistently throughout my life to make His presence known.

I don't really know what all that means or entails and although it seems like I should end this with some great revelation I didn't have one. But it definitely made me think and absolutely had to be Monday's (Friday's) Fabulous Moment of the Day.