Boo!

 Well, I hope you've all enjoyed your Halloween or All Hallows Eve if you prefer.  It's also Reformation Day if you care to be more serious.  Evidently Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the church door on October 31 because he knew there would be a good crowd at mass the next day for All Saints Day.  Like many of you, my spouse and I spent the time from 5:30pm to 7:30pm opening the door and handing out candy.  We had ghosts, lots of skeletons, little 'pumpkins,' super heroes, nurses, a coal miner and my favorite costume from last year, a traffic cone.  It's actually a good safe costume to wear as you walk dark streets on Halloween, those orange and white stripes really show up.  The sweetest was a little 3-year-old princess who was so proud that she knocked on our door all by herself.  Her mother and little baby brother were right behind her of course.  Earlier in the day my west coast brother informed me that today is also "Sneak Some of the Candy Yourself Before the Kids Start Knocking Day."  I'm happy to report that we did just that.  

This explains a lot...

 My west coast brother has informed me that tonight is "Haunted Refrigerator Night."  I've always suspected that our refrigerator is haunted, so I'm not surprised that there is a special night for it and others of its ilk.  I have yet to catch it in the act but I know that mysterious things happen when I'm not looking.  For example, often, in the deep dark middle of the night, I have heard clunking and thumping from downstairs in the general area of the kitchen.  My spouse says it's just the icemaker making ice but I suspect that the refrigerator is taking its nightly stroll around the kitchen.  My sleep fogged brain would rather accept a haunted refrigerator moving around the kitchen than think that some suspicious character has broken in.  I'm pretty sure my spouse feels the same way.  More proof of the haunting is the strange disappearance of food.  It eats the good stuff.  One day our refrigerator will be nicely stocked with cinnamon swirl bread, molasses cookies, sugar cookies, apple bread and other tasty treats from the bakery and by the next day they will have started to disappear at an alarming rate.  Not the healthy stuff though.  Oranges, apples, celery sticks and tomatoes remain untouched.  I don't know where it keeps its arms (that's one of life's mysteries) but lately it has taken to raiding the pantry.  I know this because the three large bags of candy that I bought for tomorrow night's trick or treaters have diminished to slightly more than two bags full.  Maybe we'll have to hand out oranges.

a celebration of life...

 This may seem like a macabre thing to write about but it really isn't.  Today I attended a memorial service/celebration of life for an old friend from my church.  It was a lovely service with familiar hymns and Bible verses and the promise of life everlasting. She and I had served on several committees together over the years and I was amazed, at the service, at how many happy memories came back to me as her family remembered her with wonderful essays about her life.  I selfishly found myself wondering if my children or grandchildren would say such nice things about me?  I even thought maybe I should write out some little speeches for them, but I guess not.  It was interesting though, I found myself smiling through most of the service, when I had expected to be crying.  I was even reminded, at the reception following the service, of a crazy conversation about sea horses that we had had at a dinner I hosted 12 years ago.  I found myself wondering what my funeral will be like (hopefully not for 10 or 20 years) but then I realized that recently I experienced something better than a funeral.  Back in January I was very ill and wasn't able to go to  church for four months.  Happily, I felt up to going on Easter Sunday.  I've been a member at First Pres for 40 years so I know quite a few people there. Before and after that service I was greeted warmly and lovingly by so many old friends that I almost felt like a celebrity.  So I really don't care who comes to my someday funeral or what they say.  I've already experienced an excellent celebration of life.

yet another recollection...

 Here's another memory triggered by conversation with our house guest.  He's leaving tomorrow so then I'll need to resort to other sources of inspiration.  May I say here that having a conversation, over cups of mulled cider, with no TV or cell phone interruptions, is a rare and wonderful pleasure.  We got to talking, as grandparents are likely to do, about funny things our grandchildren, or children, have said or done.  Which brought this memory to mind.  The year was 1976; my son was five years old and my daughter was three.  A five year old neighbor boy from across the alley had come over to play.  This was a common occurrence and generally the three of them got along very well together.  On this particular morning I was in the kitchen and could hear their conversation from the next room.  Suddenly I heard little 'Bobby' (names changed to protect the innocent) saying to my daughter 'Betty' "Betty, Betty, come here a minute, I want to show you something in the bathroom."  Instantly, my Mom-dar went on alert.  I didn't yell or anything, but I walked to where I had a clear view of the little half-bath under the stairs, ready to pounce (I mean gently intervene) if they shut the door.  Then I heard him say "Look, I can turn this light switch on and off with my elbow."  Whew!!

a reflection on my housekeeping????

 We were reminiscing with a friend this evening about schools we had attended and schools we had taught at, and variations on that theme and I was reminded of an incident that happened when my son was in first grade.  We lived in the Southwood Park neighborhood of Fort Wayne, about eight blocks from Harrison Hill Elementary School.  My son and three other neighborhood kids walked to school together every morning and home again in the afternoons.  One day at noon I got a call at work telling me that my son had run away from school during recess after lunch.  I think my husband was also called. Needless to say I rushed to the school as fast as I could get across town, to discover, to my great relief, that the principal had gone driving around the area and found my son sitting on our front steps, just waiting for someone to come home.  He wasn't hurt or upset, he was just waiting.  The principal took him back to school and I came and picked him up from there.  This all happened 46 years ago.  No cell phones or tracking devices.  When I asked my son why he had run away from school he said it was because his teacher had told him that after recess he would have to clean out his desk and he didn't know how to do that.  I went with him the next morning with a paper grocery bag into which we dumped a whole semester's worth of papers.  He was a good student, most of the papers had As on them, but it seemed he just couldn't be bothered to bring them home. No one has ever accused me of being a good housekeeper (Mrs. Clean I'm not) but, in my defense, I had taught him to pick up his room, at least every once in a while.  I guess that training just didn't transfer to keeping his school desk picked up.  The reason his teacher had told him to do the clean up was that papers were starting to fall out on the floor.  After that incident he did start bringing his papers home almost every day.  Some ended up on the refrigerator but many more ended up in and on the desk in his bedroom.  I wish I could say that he has grown up to be a model of organization, but he is his mother's son.  It's true that his paper stacks aren't as high as they once were, but that's largely due to the fact that he does so much of his work on his computers these days.  If only he had had one in first grade.  

a merry chase...

 It all started out so simply.  We were invited to friends' house for wine and munchies, then planned to go on with them to dinner at a restaurant.  They live in a newer subdivision way out north off of Carroll Road.  My spouse and I were secretly amused at the lengths this couple went to assure that we could find their place - just today we received one phone call with directions, one email with detailed directions, and of course we had their address to put in our GPS.  We did appreciate being told that we could ignore the road closed sign when we came to it, which we did.  We drove along, marveling at how much things have changed since I used to live out that way, and blithely drove past the well marked entrance to their subdivision and into the next one where the street signs were not at all right, which we realized pretty quickly.  Our friendly GPS lady led us out of that maze by the longest possible route, we back tracked to the correct subdivision and finally made our way to their house, only about fifteen minutes late.  That wasn't so bad except that earlier in the day I had assured them that, with all their careful directions, it would be our own fault if we got lost.  It was.  After a lovely conversation over wine and cheese, we made our way to the restaurant, had a good meal, said our goodbyes and headed on our separate ways.  At one point in the dinner conversation my spouse said that he would have looked something up, but he had left his phone in the car.  It wasn't until we were all the way home that we realized he had left the phone at their house.  Just as we were texting them to say we were coming to get his phone, the husband of the couple called us to say they had found a cell phone and was it ours?  The good news is we made it back to their house with no mis-turns, got the phone and have now made it home to stay, at least for tonight.  The other good news is that we for sure know the way to their new house now.

another committee????

 I am not a meeting sort of person.  This statement may surprise those who know me well because I have attended many, many committee meetings in my lifetime.  A conservative estimate would be 1,800.  But my behavior doesn't always match that of my fellow attendees. I almost always arrive early and I do appreciate meetings that begin on time.  I am happy to chitchat with other committee members before the meeting but, once the meeting starts, I want it to be all business.  I don't appreciate people who feel compelled to explain why they're late in excruciating detail, unless it's a really exciting story involving a skunk in their back yard or a bird that got into the house. When I chair a meeting I am almost always able to keep it under an hour, start to finish.  But I think what really sets me apart from my fellow committee members is what happens after the meeting.  I leave.  I don't stand around in the hallway or parking lot hashing over everything that was discussed and decided in the meeting, or engaging in general gossip. I guess I just don't know how to play the 'meeting after the meeting' game. I suppose if someone didn't approve of my possible lack of meeting manners, they could ask me to resign.  No one ever has.