Lesson Learned

It helps not to have an active imagination.

It all came together on Tuesday and Thursday night, as five different cooks prepared dishes for the five client families of Home and Hope.

It may not sound like a difficult management task, but between communicating with and cajoling volunteers, and fighting through the traffic (thousands of Peninsula workers live across the Bay) resulting from a booming local economy, there were some anxious moments.

It was my first time to be one of the overnight hall monitors. Veronica took the room downstairs, while I rolled out the sleeping bag in the church. Making a feeble joke about how I was glad that the Lutherans don't build the altars on the bones of the saints, I texted the family good night and promptly dozed off.

The response woke me at 1 a.m., but it was the content, "So, no ghost?" that made for a restless night. Lesson learned: no jokes, especially about religion, when one is in a dark chapel all by one's lonesome.