I had trouble with insomnia Friday night, and I woke up late on Saturday (well, late for me, anyway). So, I had to hurry so I wouldn't be late to get my hair cut.
After my haircut, I went to the Library (I finally figured out where it went!) After paying a $4.80 fine from like a year and a half ago, I got three big books checked out.
Stopped and treated myself to the Breakfast Special at my favorite Coney Island restaurant: three eggs over easy, two strips of bacon, two pork sausage links, three potato pancakes with sour cream, rye toast and coffee for $4.95 US. I call it the diabetic delight. Then, off to Farmer Jacks.
Got this week's groceries (well, it is for two weeks, actually). Thank God I found a sale on paper towels. I was down to two rolls left and I use a lot of them, but I refuse to pay regular price on the damn things. They are WAY too expensive.
Got home and unpacked everything. I found I had several emails from my Webmaster. My nephew, Mark Goerlich, had Googled his own name looking for something on the Web and got my Blog, where I had posted something about a quote on his website last June. He used the "comments" to explain something. Luckily, the Blog emails me when people comment, as I would have never went back and found it. Anyway, the poor overworked Webmaster had not yet imported old comments, so Mark did not know (and probably never will) that other people had commented (both for and against) about his quote as well. So, the Webmaster worked overtime to get old comments back, in case this ever comes up again.
He also finished the links that let me post poems, so for the first time ever, I posted a poem myself! I wrote it Friday and its called "Winter," if you're interested.
I tried to take a nap, as I was really tired, but I never fell asleep. Then it was time to get ready. I am going to a birthday church supper tonight for Joy Hampton. Relationship? Complicated! Long time readers may recall that my son Jeremy's wife Jill, after the death of her father, learned just last Summer that she had an entire family she didn't know about. And, after her father's cremation, I made 6 boxes for his ashes. Well, Judy and Brenda (her new/old sisters) mother Joy (who had been once married to Jill's Father, Ace) was having a birthday celebration all this weekend. And, Brenda had specifically asked Jill to invite me. So I was off, headed to Detroit's inner city, a black church, maybe some gospel singing and hopefully, some great soul food.
I got lost!!! NOT MY FAULT! Damn Yahoo worked great until it told me to turn left on Elmwood to Hendricks. Crawled down Vernor (to the annoyance of people behind me and drove two miles (map said 0.7 miles) before I gave up, pulled over and regrouped. Decided that according to the directions, Hendricks had to be a half a block over from where I was, (but I was on a one-way street) so went to the next big road, and went back a mile, turned left, found Hendricks, then found the Church. Whew! Note to Yahoo: It was at the corner of Hendricks and ELLROY, not Elmwood!
Went in, found Judy and Brenda and was introduced to their Mother, Joy. I grabbed a table (not knowing how crowded it was going to be) for myself and Jer's family, who showed up about 20 minutes later.
Okay, highlights: Yes, one of the women from the church did sing some gospel songs (beautiful voice, BTW), both Joe and Riese came dressed to the nines (hmmm... do people still say that? Well, if not, they were styling!) and dinner was excellent. Warming trays heaped with food. I did try and get the secret recipe for the collard greens from the cook, even promising I wouldn't tell, but no dice! She did tell me something I found interesting. I asked her if she used smoked ham hocks or neck bones or smoked turkey. She said so many black people had given up eating pork that you can no longer make collard greens the traditional way when cooking for a large group. You must use smoked turkey.
Only bad part of the evening? They had a damn microphone! At first, no problem. The gospel singer used it, Brenda used it to read a poem and say the prayer before dinner. And, people were encouraged to come up and say something about Joy. All very nice. But, when that died down, they got the bright idea to ask people to come up and introduce themselves, explain who they were and then ask somebody else to come up. I'm still not worried, why would anybody pick me? But I was not paying attention, talking with Jeremy and Joe, when I heard Brenda say something about making six beautiful wood boxes for her Father's ashes and cooking them a great meal... Oh, oh... Next thing I know I'm standing in front of everybody with a microphone in my hand, trying to explain who I am. I have no idea what I said, but people clapped. So, figuring us introverts had to stick together (and at Brenda's urging), I picked Jeremy to come up next.
Party broke up about 7:45 PM. I used the Force to find my way back to the expressway and made it back home. Nothing much on TV, but I have new books! I read to about 1:00 AM, then went to bed.