I went to the florist today with Maria, she was stopping to buy some flowers for her mother, who recently had an 88th birthday. While in the shop, I got this impulse..I wanted to buy a bouquet of tulips and hand the out at the Mansion, one to each of the first people I encountered. I had 12 flowers.

I dropped Maria off at the farm, and drove with Red to the Mansion. It was a delightful experience, three people were sitting on the porch in the sun – Alice, Jane and Ellen. I gave each of them a tulip and they were surprised and delighted. I walked down the hallway to the activity room and handed out more – Jean, Alice, Connie, two staffers, and then six more on the way to the activity room.

I came across Sylvie, who wanted one, but correctly insisted that there must be a vase.It took me ten or 15 minutes to track down a vase, and then some plastic glasses for the other residents to put their tulips in. I hadn’t really thought this through, everyone doesn’t have vases there, so there was some scrambling for awhile to get all the flowers in water.

Several people put the flowers down and then forget that they had them, so there was some more scrambling to re-unite them. The looks of surprise and delight and wonder was a joy to see, it lifted me up and left me with a warm glow. It just feels very good to do such a simple thing, it brings so much pleasure and color.

We ended up in Connie’s room, she had a small vase, of course, and in a flash it was filled with water and the flower was in it. Connie has her stuff together. Sylvie sat with her flower for a while and looked out the window, she said she was excited to take it back to her room in the downstairs wing.

I think sometimes that the smallest things are the most important things to do.

Sylvie was worried it might wilt, she will take good care of it, she said, and “Jon, thank you for my flower.” You are welcome, Sylvie.

Mansion Note. It’s a Friday evening, and I don’t imagine too many people are online right now, but a resident came up to me, and said they had something to ask me, if I didn’t mind. I said sure. The resident said that Julie Smith, the activity director who has done so much for the residents and works so hard to do things like the art show, has a printer that has stopped working. She said we have all done so much for the Mansion that Julie doesn’t want to ask for help in getting a new one.

Julie said she thinks all donations should go directly to the residents.

But the residents benefit from the printer all the time, Julie reprints articles, letters, drawings and poems on the printer. Besides, said the resident, Julie never asks anything for herself, and the residents would love to help her get her printer.

My idea is to let them present the printer to Julie directly. They would love that.

I checked printer prices and they range from $40 to $90 for a printer in the range that the Mansion might need. I’d like to get a cartridge or two also.

I know people want to be given a chance to help out – I can handle all or most of this one myself, I think – but I do want to permit others to help the Mansion residents. And I also want to resist the temptation to buy too many small items myself.

If any of you wish to contribute a small amount, you can do so by writing a check to me, c/o Mansion, Printer, P.O. Box 205, State Route 22, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Or you can contribute via Paypal through Friends and Family, my ID is [email protected]. In either case, please mark the check or Paypal payment “Mansion Printer” so I can keep my records straight and account for the money.

This is a relatively small amount of money needed, so please, if you contribute, keep it small. And thanks.

If there is an overage, I will use it to buy other supplies that the Mansion residents need.