Facing the famous, lost for words - Tongue-tied during a chance tropical encounter with Diana Krall
Debby Waldman
The Edmonton Journal
16 January 2009
Last week I was walking near a beach in Hawaii with my husband when I noticed two very cute toddlers.
"I think they're twins," I said, although it was hard to tell because they weren't standing near each other. They were scouting out the front lawn of a condo complex across from the beach, like explorers determined to make a discovery.
One was headed in my direction. He was animated, observant, focused intently on something at his feet. I was fascinated with how busy and chatty he was. It was like watching a very short, inarticulate play-by-play announcer. I tried to figure out what he was saying, but it was incomprehensible.
His mother, who was following closely behind him, noticed me staring.
"Are they twins?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"How old are they?" I asked.
"Two," she said.
I smiled at her. She studied me from behind dark glasses. Nothing unusual about that. We were in sunny Hawaii, after all.
But then I realized this was no ordinary mother of toddlers. It was Diana Krall.
Here I should point out that I am not very good at recognizing people from pictures. Were it up to me to find the children whose faces appear on milk cartons, they'd remain lost forever. Also, I tend not to trust myself when I think I'm seeing someone well-known.
It's not as if I get a lot of practice in Edmonton. But I knew I was right this time, because a few nights earlier I'd attended a talk about DNA and forensics (my husband was in Hawaii for a conference), and in the course of discussing identical twins and their identical DNA, the speaker had mentioned that Diana Krall and Elvis Costello and their twin boys were staying nearby.
Had I not heard the talk, I wouldn't have had the slightest clue who I was speaking to. But now I was faced with a conundrum: should I continue what I'd intended as a casual chat with another mother? Confess that I knew who she was? Or just wish her a nice day and leave?
[...]
It did occur to me to say something nice to Diana Krall about her music, but the truth is, I'm not familiar with her music. I'm an Elvis Costello fan, and he was standing at the other end of the lawn, staring (or, more likely, glaring) at me. I couldn't bring myself to say, "Are you Diana Krall?" I already knew the answer.
And so I looked down at her son, who was still commentating about the grass, and asked what I'd been wondering all along: "What's he saying?"
"More coconuts," she replied.
That, of course, raised further questions. But I'd asked enough. I wished her a nice day, and left.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Entertainment/Facing+famous+lost+words/1184023/story.html
Posted: 09 Jan 2005, 15:48
