February 17, 2010. Bethesda, Md. True Story.

Every day around four o'clock I serve tea to the agents. Using a beautiful and elegant tea cart given to me by Carole Maclure, I make the tea in the kitchen and wheel around the tea giving out the tea to any agent or guest. I wear an apron, given to me by Peppy, so I look a bit odd in this office environment.

At my age and stage and with a retired husband I am not always in the office as we do a bit of travelling but everyone in the office has been introduced to me and I know every agent and assistant. I thought everyone knew me.

One day I walked into an agent's office serving tea. The agent and their assistant were busy working. They thanked me for the tea and I left. As I left, the assistant commented that the tea lady looked much like Ruth and found that to be interesting. The agent laughed and laughed and told me the story, but the agent was very embarrassed so I am not supposed to tell anyone. But it is too good a story to keep to myself. The moral of the story is that I need to stay at home more often.