Operation Vivien Leigh was a success this morning. I glided past the line waiting to enter the Saturday Kitchen and into the main dining hall, there to confront Crosby, in the flesh, hauling a big garbage bag of wasted food out of the trash bin. His closely cropped hair was covered by one of those cockamamie fast food workers hats, the paper kind ( Read more... )

Sumner is this really mysterious co-counselor who technically has been a part of my weekly class since last Spring, but who, in reality hasn't been attending all that often. Until now ( Read more... )

Pale Male had been in Mississippi for a week and something made me text him last Friday night to check-in with him. He responded that he was feeling a little numb, and, was returning to New York City on Saturday, but, I still wasn't clear what his mother's condition was. It was sort of left hanging ( Read more... )

Operation Vivien Leigh still works, but, requires a lot of physical distance between myself and Eleanor Roosevelt once the early morning prayers are over. And, I try to get there after The Peace, if at all possible. It also seems that people will have to work their way around her once they assume their regular Altar Guild schedules, since there's ( Read more... )

Operation Vivien Leigh went extremely well. Crosby called our bluff, but, not in a bad way. They actually needed the extra help. We had a steady stream of funny, geeky, irreverent moments as Huggy Bear worked the bread line, I stayed on the floor and Crosby hung out in the kitchen. As I brought in an empty tray and a request from the serving line ( Read more... )

Kitchen was a success today, but, not necessarily because of Operation: Vivien Leigh. In fact, it got off to a rocky start when it became obvious at half past nine this morning that Huggy Bear would not be leading the Morning service. Herb was. Things went briskly enough once the service started - there were no hymns or homily - not even a Peace. ( Read more... )

This has been a difficult week to describe. I've taken a few stabs at it and decided to make them friend only - for which I do apologize. Here's the G-Rated version as near as I can make it ( Read more... )

So, Crosby saved me from Pablo's grip this morning. Pablo was well into sweeping this Spanish lady I've only seen a few times before, clear off her feet - fetching her coffee and slices of cranberry bread - when Crosby calmly walked over and asked whether I'd help him arrange boxes "in the back room?". To Pablo the woman's chagrin, he didn't have ( Read more... )

Okay, first a little background. Pablo is an Unreliable Narrator, a fictional character with flaws. When you see something through their eyes, it is usually through the haze of a lot of issues and internal contradictions, thus, misunderstood and thus unreliable - if taken literally. Some famous Unreliable Narrators through history have been ( Read more... )

I learned everything I ever need to know about serving coffee today: You keep three cups always poured and ready and you let the guests pick up their own cups (the better to avoid accidents between you and the guest.) It brought back terrific memories of when Frances Harven helmed the other end of the table where the sugar and milk were placed. ( Read more... )