I swear the following is true, but it would have to be for me to tell the story; as fiction, it'd be horribly, embarrassingly lame.

At the home of Maria Chao, an architect living in Amherst, one of the points of interest was the Munchkin boiler, whose chief selling points are its efficiency and small size. We visited her house as part of the renewable energy open house organized regionally by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, and nationally by the American Solar Energy Association. But Georgie and I did our tour (more later) in Greater Northampton because our niece, Annika, was celebrating her 7th birthday in Sunderland.

The theme of the party was ... "The Wizard of Oz" and it wasn't expressed in just a couple of posters and some four-color, printed napkins. My sister in law Val, a tireless dynamo of ideas and industry, sewed 30 costumes, engaged a local couple of women to direct, and staged a nine-act performance on the front porch with an audience of parents below. Naturally, there were lots of munchkins.

Annika, the guest of honor and the star of the show, in costume as Dorothy.

I did very little to help organize, though I was dispatched to Dunkin' Donuts to get a Box o' Joe. (You see where I'm going with this, no?) While I was there, waiting for them to brew the joe, a guy came in and ordered ... 100 munchkins, upping his order to 150 when a few were still left. I could swear they were all for him, but I was probably just projecting.