All in All, a Good Day

I knew it was going to be a good day when I woke up.  I had a decent night sleep.  My usual middle of the night 3 a.m. waking wasn't until 4:30 and I was able to go back to sleep right away.  By the time I came to life at 8, Walt had made coffee and fed the dogs, so I knew I would not be getting up to their yapping and jumping.

Usually the first thing I do when I come to life is to think about dinner and what will I cook now that I don't have any prepared Home Chef meals left for the week.  But we were going to a dinner at night, so I knew I wouldn't have to cook.  Last night I made Caroline's shrimp curry and it was as delicious as it was when she made it.  Good, simple recipe to have ingredients on hand for!  (Walt laughed when I told him I had to go and stock up on coconut milk.)

The second thing I think about before I get up is whether or not I should go to Atria that day, but since I was just with my mother yesterday and since we never have anything to talk about and she doesn't know if I was there an hour ago or a month ago, I felt comfortable skipping Atria today.

So the whole delicious day stretched before me, with lots of little things I could be doing, but nothing pressing I had to do immediately.

I sat and finished "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," so I'm ready to discuss the book with our "book club" when we are all in Santa Barbara in a couple of weeks.

I spent an hour or so turning yesterday's photo of my mother, a picture of Benny from our day in San Francisco, and a picture of a guy sitting at a table at Fenton's into this picture of Benny;

Then I wrote to Brianna to tell her about going to Fenton's and also that I had finished the book and was looking forward to talking to her about it.  I also wrote a letter to Lacie congratulating her on learning how to ride her bike without training wheels.

I was disappointed when I heard Walt fixing his lunch when the sound of the microwave made me think he had finished last night's shrimp (because he is a huge lover of leftovers), which I had been looking forward to for my own lunch.  But later, when I went to the fridge, I discovered he had not finished it and I was able to have a bowl of it and quench my craving.

The afternoon passed quietly and at 5 we left to go to an awards dinner for Citizens Who Care and Yolo County Hospice.  We got to the parking lot and saw all these grey haired, stooped people shuffling into the hotel and knew we had found our event!

The evening started with some music by The Threshold Choir.  These lovely ladies visit people at the end of their lives, sit quietly with them and sing to them. I've heard about this before and it seems a lovely, loving thing to do and a peaceful way to leave this life.

Then, before the actual awards began, we were invited to go to the buffet table and get out food.  We were in Table #2.  There were 28 tables of 10 in the room and they started calling tables from the back forward.  All these people got their food before we did...and some got their food, ate it, and went back to get their desserts and we were still waiting to be called (we had not chosen our table; it was assigned)

Cass Sylvia, the former Public Guardian for Yolo County was at our table and was ready to lead a revolt if we didn't get something to eat!

The advantage of sitting for half an hour watching everyone go for food was that they all had to pass by our table, so we got to see who had showed up, like Jeri's high school band leader, a woman I worked with at the Physics Department in Berkeley a lifetime ago, a guy who went to school with Tom, and a woman who came over to tell me we were friends on Facebook and she loves my posts!  We recognized a lot more faces, but probably had not seen them in 30 years and while we have not changed, they had and the names didn't come.

As we finally got our dinner and sat down to eat, they turned off the lights to show an audiovisual presentation about the recipients of this year's awards.

How many of these things have I been to in my lifetime?  Hundreds.  Why is it that nobody (except Ned and his friend Jon) thinks it's important to have an A-V rehearsal before keeping nearly 300 people in the dark while they fumble around trying to get it right.

They finally did get it going and except for a sound level so loud I had to find earplugs in my purse and wear them (and I have hearing problems!) and terrible feedback, the presentation was nice, and the people honored were very inspiring (and make me feel like a piker).

There was an auction and a silent auction, but nothing appealed to us.  They did get $1,900 for two tickets to Hamilton in SF (I'll wait a couple of years till it comes to Sacramento and I can see it for free in better seats than these auction seats!)

We are usually the last to leave anywhere we go and I sat at our table and waited for Walt to be ready to leave.

 
But all in all it was a nice event, the food (when we finally got it) was OK, the awards were inspiring, and we were home before 9, capping off an all in all good day.