Marilyn.

I’m going to tell you about a woman I’ve known for just over a week.  She’s pretty awesome.

Marilyn is Red Oak Grove’s administrative assistant.  [Secretary to most but I just can’t get myself to say that, even if it is shorter.]  She’s in her 60s [I think – I’m a bad judge of age.] and has been at ROG for – I gather – about five to six years.  She’s not a member, but instead attends the large Lutheran church in Blooming [Prairie] – First Lutheran. 

Let me tell you how she’s awesome.  I’ve interrupted her work more than once – heck, more than twenty five times – to ask her questions and, more often than not, she knows the answer.  She has been such a blessing since I began working here.  She is so incredibly helpful. 

She’s been a great advocate for me since day one.  Though I often know what I want, I won’t voice it right off the bat, especially if that thing is only for my benefit and thus – to me – selfish.  [I do not like to be needy … though sometimes I am.]  I had off-handedly mentioned to her that I would enjoy a lighter paint color in my office.  Brent, the council president, stopped in and Marilyn told him.  “Don’t you think you could lighten it up a little bit in there?” she asked.  Then she told him the chairs could stand to be reupholstered.  That was not my idea but that Marilyn – she’s looking out for me.

She’ll dodge phone calls I don’t want to take.  Don’t judge me – they’re not parishioners but solicitors and the March of Dimes that wants to throw me in jail.  She hooks me up with office supplies and she, too, enjoys a good Sharpie. 

Now the other day, as we both lamented over the lack of internet, I exclaimed that I can’t live like this!  I need technology!  [I feel like we’re comfortable enough with each other now that I can make such exaggerations without her judgment.]  Since the outburst, she invited me over to her house two different times to use her internet.  First, she said she would feed me ice cream while I was there.  And then she said that she didn’t have any wine chilled but she could be an ice cube in it.

Oh for cute.