Could I be any more embarassed?

In case you needed a laugh today (and I needed some humbling . . . ), here's two recent incidents from my life:

On Wednesday I was talking with my house helper and she mentioned that she was only two and a half years younger than me, since she has already celebrated her birthday this year. It came to me in a flash . . . oh no, her birthday! I totally forgot her birthday! "Was it yesterday?" I asked, knowing that it was on a Tuesday. No, in fact, it was last week Tuesday . . . the day that John and I were gone all day! So not only did I ask her to work about 14 hours on her birthday, she spent her birthday supervising children (a first for her) and English-speaking children at that! Oh dear, I felt so badly. So at my insistence, we have now designated next Tuesday as her birthday and we'll have a special lunch and a birthday cake. SO sorry, Lou!

The other incident occurred in the same conversation, if you can believe it. Lou was asking me about some deeper questions and as I talked with her I kept on referencing Paul's writings in the Bible. The only problem was, I kept pronouncing his name "bwoh-lwoh" instead of "bow-lwoh", calling him "pineapple" instead of "Paul"! Ooops. So, let's see, how many years have I been speaking this language??! There's always more to learn!