2 March 2014: Sunday ... broken reading glasses by the mailbox ... almost tied my bowtie (Fr: noeud papillon) ... service at UU Fellowship of Newark ... lunch & walk w/Katia ...

There are some days that just stand out in one's life like your marriage or the birth of your first child that will remain embedded in the memory, cherished and held close for as long as one retains one sensibility and one's humanity. Today was such a day.

It was the final gathering and performance of the spirituals by the combined choirs from First Unitarian of Wilmington, UU Society of Mill Creek, and the UU Fellowship of Newark, where we met on this Sunday, the first of the month of March, a day that was grey and presaged the coming snowstorm that was to arrive that evening and bring snow through most of Monday.

There is a such a vibrant and large group of young people at UUFN. Had a delightful conversation with a young lady with curly hair (not unlike the checkout girl at Bachetti's) and her friend and questioned the electricity of the youth education at the church and all it activities. They referred to their dynamic youth leader (name escapes me but I hope to experience the place in the future with Christine). 

I was anxious for the planned date we'd made for the afternoon -- lunch with mom at home and travel to the Delaware Art Museum and possible walk in Rockford Park. It was an ebullient, even though the skies were overcast and it sprinkled a bit, one as Katia followed me to Zoup (then lost me for a bit as we left and she took her hybrid toward Kirkwood Hwy and I exited the torturous parking lot of Millcreek Shopping Center), but we made it to home and mom where she struck up an immediate intimacy (she has this remarkable ability to connect with people). As I entered the house with her and started to prepare the takeout soups and sandwiches on plates, she said let me meet your mother first, since I am a stranger. Not for long. The lunch lasted a while and I took in the conversation. Her most memorable and life-enhancing words dealt with what made Katia, Katia. It wasn't her profession, although that was part of her, but she put being a mother, a friend, and a caring human being ahead of the research scientist moniker. She is amazing. 

5 October 2013: Saturday, "My powers of description are limited" he tells me ...

Trying to find a typeface that works better, a little more separate and decipherable than the fusing letters of Arial. Today has started and continues to be filled with memorable activities, new-found knowledge thanks to asking my mother dates to birthdays and complete names [e.g., Nicholas Albert Vertucci, my grandfather, and his first-born male child after two girls -- Carolyn and Virginia -- Nicholas Albert Vertucci, Jr.; and then Raymond Charles (?, she is unsure of Uncle Ray's middle name) Vertucci, who would have turned 80 on October 4, 2013, if he'd lived.]

Dancer ponders entering the Mill Creek behind Limestone Acres. The path was thorny off the bank and I had to find a way through a large downed tree leading to the intersection of Milltown and Limestone Rds. Always busy where

one needs to be attentive and patient waiting for the light to change.

Swiftered and cleaned the kitchen floor on the suggestion and the direction and finding of the swifter by Dad in the closet down in the old record room of his office.

Just messaged the above pic to Nick and Lindsay. And just returned from the library, where I got a poetry anthology with the work of Wallace Stevens, and the pantheon of booze, Wine World, where I bought (tasted before) a bottle of Pino Gris (Pinot Grigio in Italian) white wine with a 10% off for $12.59. Am getting set to head over to the Literature Lover's gathering at the home of Linda Lucero at 415 Clane Drive, a huge 1/2 of a duplex that overlooks the valley and you can see Christiana Hospital complex.

Wow ... that sums up, partially, the evening shared at the home of Linda and the culinary genius of Susan. Both combined to make a resplendent evening, two men and ten women, that was memorable and tasty and mind-enriching. More to come on Susan, Donna, Ginger, Judy, Linda and the one male, an admirer of Emerson, who read from him and got through most of a biography on him, Jack.   

Jack, the other male at the UUSMC Literary Lovers' Gathering at the home of Linda Lucero (seen on far right, next to Donna, the vocal doppelganger of Liz Johnson), reads a selection from Emerson, a Unitarian icon of the 19th century, on Saturday evening, 5 October 2013. 

Linda reading and laughing from the book "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir" by Bill Bryson she brought or pulled from her library at the UUSMC Literary Lovers' Soiree/Dinner/Reading at her home on Clane Drive. Fantastic evening.