clumsy evening

Dear Mom,

Monday nights I set up for Mass, and I never know what the room will look like before I get to work. Today there were six round tables, each one roughly my weight, scattered around the room and surrouneded by chairs. They had to go.

I was strong enough to move them, but not strong enough to move them gracefully. I kicked in the legs and rolled the tables to the room's perimeter, leaning them against the walls in pairs: two on the back wall, leg-side-out; two on the side wall, both sets of legs between the two tabletops; one right next to these on the side wall, legs out; one more on its way.

I kicked in the last set of legs and rolled the table over, putting the legs toward the side wall so they'd meet up with the other table's legs.

If I succeeded, you could look at the wall and see two round tabletops sitting right next to each other, and there would be two round tabletops sitting right next to each other, leaning against the wall. Two pairs of tables, two leg-sandwiches. Theoretically. One more table to put in place.

The legs caught. I rolled the table back and forth, trying to untangle them, but it slid between the neighboring table-pair and the wall. The neighboring table-pair fell and knocked into the lectern (just for you, Dad), which cleared the rectangle altar-to-be table by about an inch.

I asked Jordan to give me a hand; he said he could in about 10 minutes. I saw Garrett who'd come up the hill to make a phone call, so I asked him to help. The furniture was almost entirely in order by the time Jordan got there.

I went to the chapel cupboard to get the cruets (little glass pitchers). I poured some wine into one and some wine onto the floor. Fortunately the chapel carpet is red.

Later I reached up to get the lectionary (big book of scripture readings) and sacramentary (small book of prayers), which were stacked on a shelf that is above my head, but on a normal day is well within my reach. I pulled on the lectionary, but I must have tilted it too far because the sacramentary slid off. It was about to come crashing down when I saved it with a quick elbow motion, pinning it between my arm and the wall.

So you know I asked for help.

Love,

Mary