A few years ago, my mother gifted me with family crystal. "Crystal" and "cats" are a disastrous combination, so the crystal has remained safely packed away. In fact, I'd only unwrapped one wine glass so I could see what it looked like. I wasn't even sure what I possessed, but I didn't want to disturb the protective wrapping and risk having something break while in storage in my upstairs kneewall.

I've been thinking about bringing it out, but I don't own a china cabinet. My friend Debra offered a small hutch she had in storage, but I hadn't gotten around to taking her up on the offer.

Then one day, as I idly poked through Craiglist, I came across an all-glass cabinet for $30.

Only thirty bucks? It was way too early on a Saturday morning to call the poster, but then I saw it had been posted just a few minutes earlier. Whoever it was, they were already up. I called, claimed it, and then later in the day I called my friend Nancy, who works at her grooming shop on Saturdays, to see if I could rope her into helping me load it in my car.

Unwrapping the crystal was a joy and a perplexity. The glasses are beautiful, but I'm not sure what they are all used for. Water, wine, brandy, and cordial? I love the tiniest cordial glasses, and all the twisted amber stems. In the gold great room, it's as if I planned the match.

Believe me, I did not.

Do click to expand the photos if your computer will handle it, just to see those beautiful stems.

I hope my mom will be happy to see the crystal finally on display. In fact, when I had friends over, the cabinet was the first place they went. While I may be too terrified to use it, it will at least get looked at.

It occurred to me that there was room to add other family heirlooms I had received over the years, so I took the alabaster doves and the leaded cream and sugar set that my mother had given me, and added them as well.

So now most of my family treasures are in one place.

Molly doesn't care, although she does like the great room on Sundays, since she is allowed on the couch while I read the Sunday paper.

I was going to start out with a rant about taming my paperwork.

Then I got the nicest Facebook post. It's 6am. I'm on my second cup of coffee. I've already got 5 inches of paper on the "recycle" pile as I divest myself of paper that I'm been allowing to assist in disrupting my life. Up pops this cute photo of three kittens:

And you're thinking: "Okay, cute. But not earth-shaking. What's the point?"

(First off, as soon as I see these kittens, my brain immediately starts rattling away, wondering if they are recovering from anesthesia as a pediatric spay/neuter clinic, and if the volunteers made those little wake-up suits...but, not my point)

The point is, the post specifically put on my wall is from a person I knew in high school. She was quite nice to me in high school. However, let's be clear, I was not exactly in the highest social sphere at Norwich Middle and High School. I was lucky enough to have relocated from my childhood school (where I was considered a certifiable cootie girl) to Norwich, where I escaped my past reputation for highwaters and cat-eyed glasses. In Norwich, my earliest friends told me outright that wearing pants with stretch elastic waists would doom me for eternity (I begged for my first pair of jeans on my 14th birthday and got them. Wranglers. What was the name of that store on main street in Norwich? I do recall the wood floors).

There were kids up the social ladder who could be despicable to the mid-to-bottom dwellers. And there were kids up the social ladder who tolerated us. And then there were the handful of kids up the social ladder who somehow had managed to hang out there near the top of the food chain, and still manage to be sincerely nice to everyone. Not beaming nice. Not sticky sweet nice. Just plain good people. I'm not sure how one manages to be "good people" when you are dealing with the horrors of being 17, but lots of kids somehow manage it.

At any rate, I had absolutely lost track of this person in the passage of three decades, until the advent of Facebook. And on Facebook, you have lots of "friends" who are really just people you used to know. I tracked down one high school friend, which meant I was suddenly connected to a vast number of other people in that high school sphere. This was a huge help when reunion time rolled around. I now knew that one person was into running, another person had three kids, etc. I am sure Facebook has improved the high school reunion experience exponentially.

This morning, on my wall, this little cat photo appears. From this particular high school acquaintance who has no real reason to think of me at 6 am other than the fact that she saw this cute kitten photo, knew I work with cats because innumerable cat posts cross her Facebook news scroller that originate from me, and she takes the time to post this photo to me.

I'm sure I wasn't on her to-do list today.

So instead of dashing off a rant about the slavery of paperwork, I'm posting about people just plain being thoughtful and nice.

See what one little gesture will do? I must remember this.