A Day of "Making Nice" and ARGO

Yesterday I was at church from early morning until late afternoon. Our brief Sunday morning choir practice began earlier than usual, at 9:15. After church, I helped set up Wyatt Hall for a funeral reception and attended the 2 PM funeral for a dear woman who actually practiced what we promise in our Baptismal Covenant--"to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself." I had known she was a retired librarian,  but had not known that her library was at Northern Virginia Community College, which would have entailed a one-way commute of nearly an hour. Co-workers and women she had encouraged to complete their educations traveled some distance on a beautiful April Sunday afternoon to say good-bye, but I am not surprised. Rebecca was a loving woman. 

The parishioners brought way too much food for the reception afterwards. At the end of the day, we boxed up the leftovers and took them to Reality House, a half-way house for folks in recovery, which is just down the street from us. "Thank you, Jesus!" said one of the residents as she helped carry the cut-up vegetables, tea sandwiches and cake into the house.

After acting more sociable than I actually am for more than eight hours, I was ready to turn off the phone and raise the drawbridge. That evening we--husband, pit-bull and cat-- watched ARGO, a thoroughly enjoyable cliff-hanger. "Get that plane up in the air!" I fretted, as the story moved toward its climax. Would the six American diplomats, who were impersonating Canadian film makers, manage to elude the clutches of the Iranians, who were holding the other American diplomats hostage after the embassy take-over in 1979? Glitches in the carefully-crafted escape plan kept popping up, escalating my anxiety. In addition to suspense, the film displayed an impressive array of engaging characters: fusty government bureaucrats, irreverent Hollywood types, and a brilliant CIA operative, a good guy for once. The success of his mission depended on winning the complete trust of all six Americans, which he appeared to do, with one persnickety exception.

Tory if you're reading this, I have a question for you. (Tory, who blogs at ioftenwonderwoman.blogspot.com, is from Toronto.) Ben Affleck, whose speciality as a CIA operative" was getting people out," put the six Americans through a crash course on their new Canadian identities, including correcting their accents. I expected him to work on the pronunciation of "about" or "house," but instead he cautioned the woman who was supposed to be from Toronto not to call it "ToronTO."   Natives call it  "Torono," he said. Tory, is this true?