Is Mandy memorable?

I think she must be. I mean, I can't forget her, but she's around all the time so that may not be a real test. But apparently other people remember her, too.

Yesterday, she was up doing laundry here at the marina, and a woman walked in and gave her a funny look. Finally, the woman said, "Did you go to the Olympics last year?"

We get into a lot of funny conversations around here, but that might have been stranger than usual. In fact, we did go to the Olympics last year in Vancouver, BC. Of course, so did several million other people. It's not a question like, "Did you have dinner at Matador last night?" And it's not as if Mandy were wearing a Vancouver 2010 Olympic stocking cap, or clutching an Olympic mascot Miga doll or anything; she was as plain as possibly could be at the tail end of a laundry cycle.

But it turned out the woman was Jean, of S/V Perfect Fit, a Bavaria 37 that had moored next to us at the False Creek Harbour Authority docks for a couple of days during the Games in February 2010. We had chatted with her and her husband Mark a couple times as we ran into them, either coming or going during that busy week, but if you had asked me to pick either of them out of a lineup a year and a half later, no way.

At that time, they were living in Arizona and keeping their boat up near Victoria. Now it turns out they have moved themselves and the vessel, respectively, to Portland, and to N dock here at Shilshole. And, apparently, they remember Mandy. No word on whether or not I might have been similarly memorable. But anyway, we'll probably be running into them more frequently now, so that test is yet to come.