I'm confused...

 Today is Step Into the Spotlight Day and also Poet in a Cupcake Day.  Now I understand about stepping into the spotlight.  If you get yelled at often enough you remember that you need to be in your spotlight so the audience can see you.  But the idea of poets in cupcakes forced me to do some serious research.  Or actually just a little search on Google.  It turns out that April is National Poetry Month and the first full week in April is Take Your Poet to School Week.  Poet in a Cupcake Day is always the Friday of Take Your Poet to School Week.  The website I found suggested theme cupcakes such as a black frosted Raven cupcake for Edgar Allen Poe.  I think a cupcake shaped hand puppet that spouts poetry might be fun.  In the meantime, I happen to have a chocolate cupcake in my refrigerator.  Perhaps I should eat it for inspiration.  Yes, I think that's a good idea.  

salute!

 Today, according to my west coast brother, is Global Day of the Engineer in the middle of Engineers Week.  So I salute all of you hard-working, or retired, engineers of every kind.  Some of my best friends are engineers, not to mention my husband.  Although he always insisted he was a mathematician.  I asked my brother what kind of engineer he is.  He has worked at a TV station, behind the cameras for many, many years.  His response was that he plays an engineer on TV.  But, although I thought this response was funny, I wasn't quite satisfied with it.  So I Googled him.  Evidently he is a Broadcast Engineer.  So now I know, and he knows that I can track down his information.  Kind of spooky, isn't it?  Big sister is watching you!

It's back!

 Well, maybe it's back.  Some of you will remember a couple of years ago when I was tracking a white plastic grocery bag caught in the thorny branch of a locust tree along the river and visible from my balcony.  I reported on its status several times over the many, many  months that it clung to that branch.  Finally, finally after it had become somewhat shredded, a giant wind blew it away.  Never to be seen again?? Well maybe.  But last week I discovered a very familiar looking white plastic bag clinging to a locust tree branch along the river.  Now I'm not really saying that last year's bag has made it all around the world and back again.  This bag looks a little too fresh and clean.  But isn't it fun to imagine the trip it might have taken?  After all, those little bags are virtually indestructible.

What a man

 I just finished watching the first two hours of the new PBS program about Benjamin Franklin.  From what I've seen so far it seems he was brilliant, interested in everything, and an inventor.  Most of that was probably in our high school history books.  I knew he had played around with a kite in a lightening storm but I didn't remember that his experiments led to the invention of the lightening rod which saved a lot of churches and barns from burning down.  I did not know that he had only two years of school.  He went to work in his father's candle factory when he was 10.  Definitely a rags to riches story.  These two hours got us to 1775.  What I found most interesting was that he was sort of an unintentional rebel.  He had spent years in London trying to make the relationship of the colonies to England more equitable.  It reminded me of Martin Luther, who didn't set out to break away from the Catholic church; an unintentional protestant.  Stay tuned.  Next week, the American Revolution.

Communion Covid style

 I assisted in serving Communion today for the first time in about three years.  But what a difference those years have made.  Years ago, when I helped serve Communion in our little chapel I carried the trays containing the delicately balanced tiny little chalices and practically held my breath the whole way for fear of spilling a full tray of juice.  Then came a time of going up front for Communion, intinction style.  When I served, I merely stood holding a chalice (full size) while people took a chunk of bread and dipped it into the grape juice.  The trickiest part was making sure people didn't get their fingers in the juice, or try to drink out of the chalice.  I only had one person try that.  Then came pandemic style Communion, do it yourself during couch church.  I liked it this way because at home I could have wine for Communion.  I guess there is that little bit of Lutheran still in me.  These days we are back to having Communion together in the sanctuary, but in the post-pandemic style, which is actually a throw back to the old Presbyterian style, the congregation stay seated in their pews and we who serve bring the elements to them.  But what made serving today so nice is that, instead of a tray of little glasses full of juice and another tray of bread chunks (we don't do wafers), I only had to carry one light tray containing lightweight plastic cups containing a chunk of bread (gluten free option in the middle) with a little juice dropped onto it.  So easy, no fuss, no muss.  I may volunteer to do it again some time???

It seemed like a good idea

 A local dry cleaning company has offered a pick up and delivery service for several years, where I live, but lately they have improved the service by making it door to door, for the same price as if you took clothes to one of their stores.  I had been meaning to take advantage of this service for a couple of weeks since I met their delivery person in the elevator.  On Tuesday, I met her in the elevator again, and deciding to take advantage of the situation, asked her to come to my apartment to pick up my dry cleaning.  She came, I handed over two blazers and a sweater, gave her my credit card info, and off she went, promising that the clothes would be returned clean by Friday.  I told her I would be gone most of the day on Friday and she assured me that was no problem, she would leave the garments hanging on my door.  The door knocker is a handy place to hang something.  She said she did it all the time and never had a problem. I believed her because I think my neighbors are honest and I can't imagine why they would want my clothes.  A note here, when I was selling real estate and someone said there would be "no problem" there always was.  Sure enough, Friday came and went and no clean garments showed up on my door knocker.  This morning I called the delivery lady (DL) and asked, nicely, where my dry cleaning was?  She said she had delivered it yesterday as promised.  I said it wasn't here.  All of this by texts of course.  I called the office here to see if it had been delivered to the wrong door and turned in at the office.  No such luck.  Then I heard back from my DL.  She had indeed delivered it to the wrong door, actually the right door but in the wrong building.  I called the office again, to let them know the lost had been located, and before I could head over to the other building, our helpful assistant manager showed up at my door with the clothes.  So all is well. But later today I received a survey request from the dry cleaners, asking me to rate their service.  Maybe I'll just ignore it, or maybe I'll suggest they read my blog.  

a very strange musical

 I think it was allergies.  I took Claritin and that has helped a lot.  I'm improved enough that I was able to go with a friend to a very funny show at the Civic this evening.  It was a musical called Forbidden Broadway and consisted of many familiar musical tunes with brand new lyrics.  Two of my favorites were "Ambition" to the tune of the song "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof and "Tomorrow" from Annie, sung by a 30 year old cigarette smoking Annie bemoaning the fact that she hadn't had a starring role or any role since she was ten years old.  She was still wearing her Annie dress.  All in all a very funny show.  There was one small problem, but not with the show.  The programs were available as a paper copy or you could scan the QR code (I think that's what those little squares are called) and read it on your phone.  Not thinking of the consequences I let the lady beside me scan the code from my program.  Then she kept her phone on during the whole first act.  My eyes are pretty light sensitive and it was really bothering me.  So, at intermission, I very nicely asked her to turn off her phone or turn it at a different angle.  I figured the worse she could do is say no, but she was very nice and turned off her phone.  In return, I gave her my paper program which I should have done in the first place.  But I was able to enjoy the second act without that glare in my eyes.  Since theaters always ask the audience to turn off their phones they might want to reconsider encouraging people to download the programs on their phones.  Just a thought.