Japanese Beetles

At the Audrey Robbins Humanitarian Awards luncheon today Ilana Bittner asked me what I do with a new jar of peanut butter after I use it for the first time.

“I put it back on the shelf in the pantry. Where else would I put it?”

“The refrigerator.”

Jessie Newburn, chimed in “Only if it’s the fresh kind.”

Jessie had invited Ilana and I, as well as her hubby Dave, Heather Kirk Davidoff, Susan Coughlin, Frank Hecker, and Robin Abello, to share her table at the noon time affair. We were the hocoblogs table.

This lunch is a pretty big deal. It was held in one of the bigger assembly rooms at the Oakland Mills Interfaith Center and the loco politicos were drawn to it like moths to a flame, as least the Dem politicos that is. Our county exec was there as well as council chair Courtney Watson and her council colleagues Calvin Ball, Mary Kay Sigaty, and Jen Terrasa. The Gen Assem Dems were all there too, Senators Robey and Kasemeyer, Delegates Bobo, Turner, Guzzone and Pendergrass.

I asked Ken what he does with his peanut butter after using it for the first time.

“I put it in the refrigerator,” he told me.

Ilana, who is Jewish, suspects this might be a Jewish thing.

“I would think it would make the peanut butter too hard to spread evenly on the bread," I offered.

“It tears up the bread too,” hubby Dave chimed in. He should know. He lives in a house where the peanut butter is kept in the refrigerator.

After the lunch I was standing in the lobby talking to Mary Kay and Calvin when Jen strode up.

She says she hasn’t given up on convincing me that I’m wrong about her. I told her I readily admit it when I get something wrong but that I’ve also known Dennis Schrader longer than her and happen to think he’s one of the best candidates in the field right now.

And that encounter made me think it’s time to make another endorsement. I had planned to do that today but when I got home a crisis was developing in the deciduous trees I have so lovingly planted in my yard. The beetles had arrived.

Every year the Japanese beetle appears on the scene about this time and goes to town on my trees. I had been watching for them for the past few weeks. I was ready for them.

So now that the first wave of the insect invaders has been beaten back I was able to retreat to my inner sanctum and write. For now though I’ll put off the endorsement post until tomorrow. Right now I’m going to fix myself a little peanut butter sandwich.