A Star for a Smile...

Andrea spreads sunshine with her bright smile.
"Part of my Hinduism is an obligation to be happy," she said.
It shows, her efforts to "make the world a more noble place."

That's why I gave her a gold star...

I met Andrea a few months back at the corner grocery, where her exchange with the clerk could best be described as exuberant. The clerk had noted how Andrea always made her day with her smile and her optimism. I had to step in and give her a gold star. After all, she was obviously giving everyone she encountered so much. She remarked to me then that she herself had thought often of giving out gold stars, especially on the subway, when people seemed to need one so badly. She loved the project, loved her star. She needed it more than I knew, having just been laid up in her apartment for quite a while after an injury.

I invited Andrea to a party I was having the next day and she came, and she lit up the place. Everyone kept telling me, "I met your friend Andrea, she's great!" We tried to get together a bunch of times after that, to no avail, but today it finally worked. As we sat at Naidre's, she talked of one of her favorite blogs, Maitaispicturebook.blogspot.com, a glamorous site focused around a sophisticated French woman's love of all things Hermes.

But still, despite such aspirations, despite her beautiful elephant bracelets and her funky designer frames, she said, "the gold star you gave me is at home, it is one of the things I treasure most. I can't sell it on eBay for even a penny," she laughed, unlike one of Maitai's Scarf Fur Collars. "But it has intrinsic value, it reminds me that I was acknowledged for being myself, for doing something I do naturally."

I love that! And now, Andrea has another gold star, this one right on her P.D.A., a mobile reminder that being her fabulous self should be always be its own reward!