WHAT A CROWD!

       And it wasn't in the dining room. It was in the kitchen!

       One is keeping the gate, as we expected. Several times he brought his great good humor to the kitchen. But the first thing I saw when I entered the kitchen was Miss Lillian!!! My brain was making tons of adjustments—how to make nice—how to cooperate… then I saw her taking OFF her apron!!! (Thank you, God!).

       "Oh, don't go!" I called to her, but her preparations for tomorrow's special event were finished. She stayed only a minute more, laughing heartily with Joey and calling him sugary pet names. It was kind of creepy, looking into that part of their world.

       "You look pretty today, Miss Joy," Joey said. "And you smell French." Talk about a compliment!
       Mr. Huggy popped in the back door early; he'd had no one to take to church (what's the world coming to), and he barely stopped to say hey (again… what's up).
      So Joey indicated that aside from putting 3 dozen eggs on to boil, he'd done nothing toward lunch. He wasn't able to access the pantry yesterday for soup makings, and I was on my own… So were the eggs—after an hour their water was barely steaming, and that's when I realized he'd covered those eggs in gallons of water. After he poured most of it off, we got boiled eggs. Then he boiled another potful. I was making deviled-egg sandwiches (with toothpicked olives on top). For reality, we had fragile, dry bread.

       Soup. To my delight, the mystery box was heaped with good things for the soup. Joey gave me some diced frozen potatoes to add, and I made a huge pot. One and Joey were both saying we had a full house! One said maybe 50 people. I was skeptical, but put my shoulder into the cooking anyway.

       Just as I was about halfway through mixing the first batch of eggs, a woman came to the kitchen, put on an apron, washed her hands, and got out a pair of gloves. Joey introduced her as Miss Brenda. Apparently, she's a regular volunteer. It seems that Brenda's day job was going to interfere with her making the peanut-butter-jelly sandwiches for our street folks tomorrow, so she came in today to get those done. She appeared to give NO CREDIT to the fact that EYE was working at the worktable. She loaded herself up with supplies and came forth, as if she were the only one in the kitchen. I slid my bowl, Cuisinart, loaves of bread and utensils to one end, as far as possible. Then Brenda made herself at home on the other end of the table. It would have helped if she'd had a sense of humor, but she's a bit sour-faced. She does enjoy talking to Joey by herself, and talking about the "sad circumstances" of our residents.

       Maybe I'm cold-hearted, but I often lose sight of the residents' circumstances on Sunday mornings. They are my friends; I am making them lunch; I laugh with them, and I always give them as much food as they want. Maybe Brenda has never ventured past the peanut-butter 'n jelly table… It's possible. Come to think of it, Miss Brenda did make over Mr. Huggy's uniform quite a bit! Girl doesn't get around much.

       My little girl got a beanie ostrich today. She loves it. The 2-year-old girl got a kitten. Joey saw her hugging it to her chest and said, "That's a Kodak moment, Miss Joy." There were no other children at lunch.

       We don't have a plan for next week; we're plum out of ideas. Salad came to mind, but it's hard to get excited about salad. And, oh my, that enormous food freak waddled to the counter announcing that she "couldn't" eat egg sandwiches (doesn't eat embryos) and "wouldn't" eat the soup (doesn't eat meat). I shrugged my shoulders and walked away, not offering to find her anything else. Joey offered her some leftover corn and rice. No sale. OBVIOUSLY, she eats.

       The faces are changing, though Phil is still a running thread. He was mopping the dining room when I arrived and in good cheer. I told Joey it was nice of Phil to do that, but Joey said Phil was "assigned" the chore for an infraction of the rules. Apparently, he infracts from time to time. Speaking of such, my own Joey announced that he'd scored a 19 on last week's vocabulary test because he cheated and the teacher caught him. He said he promised her he'd never do that again—after he got through crying. Joey's just taking on too much—failed to study—thought he could slip one by. Well… lesson learned.

       My readership has dropped to two, or I'd ask for menu suggestions. Heck, I'll ask anyway. Either of you have menu suggestions for this hot weather?