KENNETT: Ringing in the New Year at the Mushroom Drop

Like thousands of others, we rang in 2015 at the Mushroom Drop in the middle of Kennett Square. I thought the event was even better than last year: it didn't feel as jammed, and I didn't see any obnoxious behavior: the one woman who stepped on the back of my boot by accident apologized immediately.
Even though the temperature was in the mid-20s, it just didn't feel as frigid as it did in 2013, merely bracing. People were well bundled up (I am sure I walked right past lots of people without recognizing them), though I didn't see any red-and-white mushroom hats this year. One uncomfortable-looking woman on South Union Street had clearly just come from a fancy party. She was wearing a short dress, black stockings and high heels that I'm sure were great for stepping from limo to red carpet, but not so great for traversing the sidewalks of Kennett.
I briefly considered staying home and watching the live feed of the event, or perhaps a video the next day, but I'm really glad we went. Let's face it, a huge lighted mushroom dangling in mid-air from a crane is a sight not to be missed. The organizers did a great job, and from what I could see a lot of canned food was being collected from the revelers (a volunteer took our bag and loaded it right into the food pantry's truck).
We came into town from the west, and I didn't realize until after the event that only a block away, firefighters were fighting a blaze at a house at Broad and Linden Streets, just north of the Kennett Square Police Station.

SHOPPING: Two store clerks who make Tilda's life easier

I want to give a shout-out to the workers at two local stores, both in the Longwood Village shopping center, who went above and beyond for me in recent days.
The first is a young man at the GameStop store. My friends convinced me that as a smart, hip middle-schooler, The Young Relative would greatly appreciate a gift card from the store, which sells videogames and the gadgets you need to play them with.
Well, my knowledge of videogames begins with "Pong" and ends with "Asteroids" and "Space Invaders," so the store was uncharted territory to me. I walked in, looked around, and saw lots of signs for unfamiliar games with words like "Assassins" and "Warcraft" and "Batman" in the titles. I was totally at sea and threw myself on the clerk's mercy, asking him how much I should spend on a gift card.
To his credit, he neither rolled his eyes nor named a hugely inflated dollar figure. He simply said that most of their games cost between $40 and $60, so $50 would be a good round number. 
Done!
I asked him whether he had a lot of clueless "older" customers like me and he laughed and said some grandparents are extremely well informed and simply rattle off exactly what they want to purchase for the grandkids.
"Some of them know as much as we do," he said, with admiration.
The other worker I want to praise is a middle-aged cashier at Staples who always makes shopping there a pleasure. She's not only very efficient but warm and nice. You get the sense that she enjoys her job and interacting with her customers. She pointed out a rebate I was eligible for but had missed ("You might as well get every penny you can," she advised). She knew exactly what to do with the three credit cards I handed her (debit card; Staples membership card; ink discount card), scanning them in the correct order. Top-notch service.

DAY AT THE OFFICE: Sometimes it's tough not to be distracted

My current proofreading project is a 300-page book about fool's gold (pyrite). It's clear that the author, a geologist, loves his subject--so much so, in fact, that he has made it his life's work and is writing this book just to share with a wider audience his boundless enthusiasm for this common mineral. Frankly I think he may be the world's biggest fan of the stuff, which he claims is responsible for the discovery of America and pretty much our entire way of life. Technology? Mining techniques? Environmental science? Medicine? Bacteriology? Yep, he links pyrite to all of them.
Anyhow, my deadline is fast approaching, so the past few mornings I've headed out right after breakfast to one of our local coffee shops, where I spread out my papers, plug in my headphones (yoga music) and get to work.
Just as I was about to start today, however, I overheard a conversation at the next table.
"Well, it could have something to do with the fact you locked me in the closet," I heard one woman telling another. From what I could gather, she was recounting how she and a sibling had had an contentious Airing of Childhood Grievances over the holiday.
And then a guy sat down next to me and, on his tablet, started Skyping with a man in China. In Chinese!
It's a good thing I have an overdeveloped work ethic, because my fellow coffee-drinkers were lots more interesting even than the chemical composition and idiosyncratic properties of pyrite.
What I was just as glad NOT to hear, though, was the string of job interviews being conducted at a table near the door. As I was coming in, I heard one applicant saying something about "impacting our facilities"; as I was leaving I overheard another saying, "In short, that's what I know about your company."

CLEANING: Another endorsement for the magical cleaning cloth

A nice fellow came up to me at a Christmas party and thanked me for writing an item a few weeks ago about Streakfree Microfiber Cloths, the cleaning cloths that genuinely work, and with just water, no need for additional cleaning products. In fact, he said they work so well that he actually went searching for more things to clean, both inside the house and in his car. He even ordered some of the cloths as stocking-stuffers!
And no, I assured him, I am NOT getting a kickback from the Baltimore manufacturer (www.streakfreeproducts.net). I'm just glad to spread the word about a humble, low-tech, US-made product that lives up to its billing and truly makes housekeeping less onerous.