Who put the "fun" in "funeral?"

My mother has this amazing mysterious ability to meet people she knows in random places. Usually, I can't go anywhere with her without her bumping into someone she knows--someone from the town she grew up in, or from her former job, or friends of family (usually it's friends of Aunt Dorothy).

Last night, it happened to me. I have inherited my mother's ability to bump into people I know. And somehow I managed not to shy away from the ability by hiding in the coat closet.

Jim and I went to the wake for Aunt Dorothy's husband, Tom (the funeral is tomorrow and I can't go). I had nice conversations with some of my several dozens of cousins, and as I was chatting with one of them, a lady walked into the church where we were for the wake. She looked strikingly familiar. It just had to be my high school band teacher's wife (or ex-wife. I knew there was a divorce in recent history--my mom keeps me informed of these things. I don't know how she knew this--oh no, I do. There was an article in the paper about my former band director). She was at many of the high school band functions and their youngest son was in my grade and in most of my math classes (as well as band), so I knew who she was. I went to the guest register and sure enough, IT WAS MRS. G! I went up to her and asked her if her last name was G______ and she said it was, and we talked for five or ten minutes. It turns out that she and Mr. G lived across the street from Tom and his first wife for many many years and they were good friends. She didn't know my Aunt Dorothy, but she was there at the wake for Tom. I told her to say hello to her son, whose humor I enjoyed immensely in high school. We discussed music too (she taught instrumental music at the middle schools in our district) and just generally had a good laugh at coincidence. Another coincidence--her son teaches physics at the high school right across the street from my Aunt Dorothy's house.

And then "It's a Small World" started playing in a creepy minor off-key dirge manner in my head and to clear my brain of it, I had to listen to Tom's old-timey jazz and watch Dorothy shimmy to the music. She puts "fun" in "funeral" as well as just about everything else she attends.

Just for cuteness' sake, here is a picture of my cat trying to be a cute little kitty.This is the first time I've ever seen him sleep like this. Usually he's sprawled out like a big fat sausage.

Changing subjects again, I found this webpage very informative: How to cook food in a hotel room. I'm particularly interested in making fondue sauce in a coffee maker. Grilled cheese sandwich with an iron? Not very creative--I'm sure thousands of hungry college freshman males have tried this, although I'm not sure where they would have found an iron.