Grace

is leaving your wallet with all your bank cards and medical IDs on the sugar/cream dispensing table at Starbucks at the Mall of America and having someone pick it up and turn it into the employees instead of going on a shopping spree. (If worst had come to worst, fortunately my checkbook and identification were carried separately.) I've never done left my wallet behind in a public place before in my life, never. And what a place to pick: one of the shopping spree capitols of the world. I had helpfully put a sticker inside with phone numbers listed: "In case of Emergency, call..." and the Starbucks employee called my sister who immediately called me. I got it back within fifteen minutes. But those were, yo, about the longest fifteen minutes of my life.

To the nice anonymous person, thank you. If you had lingered there, I would written out a reward check for you on the spot, but all I can do instead is to announce to the universe that you, whoever you are, are the greatest.

Love,
me

If you've sent me email in the past week

I'm having terrific troubles with my computer, which has been fritzing out and crashing repeatedly (which has been driving me up a wall), and I've been excessively distracted with all the end of the year stuff and Other Stuff Elinor Dashwood Does Not Mention. I'm afraid I have been very spotty about responding and may have missed some things. Leave me a comment here if you need to yell to get my attention for something. I do not usually feel like such a ditz, but somehow I am this week (Exhibit A: my last entry).