March 14, 2013 Thursday

I can hear from my chair inside my house the heavy machinery at work on my street as the utilities are being under grounded in my neighborhood. The team has been working for months now and it appears that they have done all the work below ground and now they are re paving the street to look like new. These men who wear the bright yellow green vests and hardhats have been digging, with shovels and earth movers and scraping and sweeping through the cool of the winter months. Now it's warming up and I see them donning sun protection... one man had created a cardboard brim measuring about a foot on all four sides to fit over his hardhat. People are clever. Yesterday, as I waited for the one open lane to open up for me so that I could drive to my house, I shared with the flag man about our new pope. I thought twice about sharing the news. I was still exhilarated after watching the live reports from Rome as our new pope appeared on the balcony to all of us! What if this flagman didn't know what a pope was or didn't care? I went ahead and asked him if he'd heard about the new pope? He showed an interest and so, I told him. He wondered right away: was he an Italian? Well, sorta. His father was an Italian immigrant to Argentina. The flagman perked up... and then I said, and guess what name he chose? "FRANCIS." He's the first Pope Francis! I said. The flagman smiled and said... "cool." and he smiled and nodded again "I like that." Viva el papa!!