The E-mail I Did Not Receive

Today I went to the "tea room" with the fellowship committee at my church. The fellowship committee is basically responsible for finding people to make and serve all of the food we eat at the church for whatever cause. Typically they are responsible for cookies after church and we've really improved since I got here 4ish year ago. It used to be people would bring storebought cookies and now people are starting to bake again. There is SUCH a difference! (speaking of which, I still need to get you the coconut recipe, Dixie! Sorry!) Anyway, every year they go out to lunch to celebrate the Christmas season. Everyone dons their Merries and heads over to a girly-ish kind of place (spouses come along and sit at their own table). They always invite the pastor (a nice gesture) and pay for my food (a really nice gesture). Then they exchange gifts. In the past they've each brought a gift for everyone at the table (exhausting) but in the last year everyone has brought one $5 gift and we've drawn numbers to see who gets which gift. With the other money they would normally spend they donate it to a needy family in the community. I'm proud of them -- for enjoying each other and celebrating while also recognizing that it's not all about them. And the cool thing is, I received some pretty cool Santa mixing bowls and got to eat spinach quiche (my favorite!), cheesy potatoes, raspberry jello salad, a cinnamin muffin, and peach tea. MMMMM! Yummy!

But by the title of this thing you can see that the lunch is not the topic du jour. I was asked by the 93 year old woman on the committee (people serve a long time on committees in FL) if I received her e-mail (people are also quite technologically savvy at older ages in FL). I didn't even realize that this woman HAD an e-mail address. Further, she has macular degeneration so I didn't know she would even be able to read on the computer. (Come to think about it, she also drove to the tea room and I didn't realize she could do that either. She always requests a large print bulletin on Sunday morning. Hmmm) But the thing is, I HAVEN'T received an e-mail from her. I don't know if she even sent it to the right e-mail address, but I have a thing about avoiding confrontations with people over 90. I just don't like to upset them in any way. And so I told her I would double check, knowing that I never received her e-mail. Now I'm wondering how to ask her to try to resend an e-mail and I'm wondering how many other people have tried to send an e-mail and it hasn't gone through but they think I'm ignoring them because I'm not replying. She assures me she ALWAYS gets a returned e-mail if it doesn't go through, but what if it was sent to the wrong address? OK, I know I'm overreacting here, but I'm having way too much fun with it. There's just something about old people doing younger people things that just makes me smile -- like the 76 year old woman who was tellling me tonight how annoyed she was getting at the man down the street who walks by her house daily to tell her how LONELY he is. She finally told him to get a dog! What a riot!

Well, I'm letting the girls paint each others' toenails for the first time. I'd better go see what color the floor is.