Many of the blogs I read have been nominated for Best of Blog Awards. That's gotta' be a good feeling. The thing about awards is that most blogs have categories. My blog, on purpose, is not easy to categorize. It's not literary, particularly. (Sometime I should blog why I do book assessments the way I do.) It's not humorous. It's definitely not a cooking or knitting blog. I don't like to spew forth links to other sites. So, I'll just keep doing what I do. (I would like to get out to other blogs and interact with comments more.)
One of the aspects of my life I allow into the blogosphere is a document of my entering public life as an appointed official or maybe someday an elected one. My faux pas count is so high that if I got out more, I could turn that process into a humor blog. Geesh, my friends can't invite me anywhere!
Not that they don't try now and then.
A friend has been after me for months to go with her to a Rotary Club lunch meeting. Rotary is an international service club. Their motto: "Service Before Self" or something like that.
This week, I finally attended a meeting with her at a local motel. The members sit around and eat, then the program starts. First order of business is to welcome visiting members from other clubs (the farthest traveled was a member from India). then introduction of guests, then announcements, then a presentation by a visiting speaker.
As I came in, I hugged and greeted people I knew (probably 20 out of 100 people). I saw someone I had not seen in five years, so I regressed to days gone by and wrote my host's maiden name on the "guest of" line. Faux pas #1. The members got a big chuckle out of that and warned me that her husband would scold me vigorously.
Faux pas #2 was worse. We sat at the table with the speaker, the mother of a soldier in Iraq who started the local chapter of a support group. She brought fliers and a photo album. The guest speaker asked me to pour her a cup of coffee. Big mistake. I had trouble with the lid on the pitcher. Finally, she had an overfull cup of coffee in her hand and I was relieved, duty done. After I poured the coffee, my host asked for a napkin. She wanted to clean the drops of coffee that had spilled on the fliers and album. I was mortified. The speaker assured me that the damage was not serious -- just a couple of fliers and no photos damaged. Fortunately for me, the photo album pages were coffee colored anyway, so the coffee stains blended right in.
I made her an origami crane as a peace offering. She wouldn't accept any more (other than donations to her organization.)
Faux pax #3. I didn't give her organization any money either.
Even so, I got the recruitment email soon after, "thanks for attending, if you want to know more" signed by the recruitment committee chair.
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