It was a windy day, and I was trying to stuff too many birthday balloons into the back of an SUV. It was like cramming an octopus into a suitcase: you get two arms in and one arm pops out!
I was struggling with these independently minded balloons, already late to the two and four-year old’s McKinley Park birthday party, when a charming woman crossed the street.
“Want some help?” asked who I came to know was Beverly DeBenedictis.
“YES, please!” I responded.
Together we stuffed the inflatables into the SUV without squashing our digits or popping the “three” or “five” balloons.
DeBenedictis, like me, had left her home – in her case Albuquerque, New Mexico; in mine the Hudson River Valley in New York – to help her family, caring for her less than a year-old granddaughter, Eliza.
“It’s a ball to visit!” she said, adding that she doesn’t mind the hills because she’s from the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, and is especially fond of Christopher’s Books and the Potrero Hill library.
Jessica Zimmer 
S Anne Steinberg 
Mark Steensland 