ecumenical

I was reminded to blog about the peace event I attended Wednesday night. My computer won't stay on, so I'm using Erik's. Boy do I hate laptop keyboards. I can't pop off the caps lock key, so I keep hitting it when I hit the shift.

The peace event was the same as last year's and the year before. Representatives of various faiths gave little talks. The Jew lit a menorah for us. The Muslim...I can't actually remember what the Muslim talked about, but I remember she mentioned equality of the sexes. There was no Buddhist this time, so Swami was the only representative of the East. Swami went first this year. He did some peace chants in Sanskrit and then English translations. They were beautiful.

There was singing. The notes were too high. I didn't sound good. We all lit white candles and took them outside to the fountain to let them float. Then we gave one another a sign of peace. A stranger hugged me.

I had an interesting conversation during cookie time with one of the women who works in the bookstore. We talked about bookstore boss. It was refreshing, validating.

My friend J came in the same car as me and P. She was having too many senior moments. She couldn't figure out how to use her seatbelt. Eventually she got it buckled, but without her body in it. P had to help her. Then when we dropped her home, she couldn't figure out how to use the key to get into her apartment complex. P had to help her do that too. She called me Maria and Anna Marie. She referred to Erik as Kirk, and I corrected her. Anyway, it seems clear that her mind is going, and it's sad because she won't be able to live alone much longer, and I hope her family takes good care of her. She's the first person I've ever known to go from pretty standard brain functioning to pretty bad. She was being giggly and good-natured about it. But when J was gone, P told me, "Scary, scary."

Today Erik scored nine and a half hours. I worked on Christmas cards, Christmas letters.