I don’t know whether the 600-plus revelers at the Newtown Tercentennial Ball last Saturday night felt more like penguins in their black and white formalwear or sardines packed into the overflowing banquet room of the Fireside Inn, but whatever the species there were all pretty happy to be out on the town.

While the ladies who dressed up in Colonial costumes for the ball probably knew that dealing with hoop skirts was going to be a challenge, most probably didn’t take into account their draftiness. “I figured the hoops would be a problem, but I never realized all that space under there was going to be so drafty!” said one costumed guest who shared her secret only after she made me promise not to share her name.

Sandy Motyka may have felt like Cinderella at the ball, but it wasn’t her glass slipper that she discovered missing about halfway through the evening. At some point during the festivities she looked down and discovered a very special bangle bracelet was no longer adorning her wrist. But, like the tale of Cinderella, the story has a happy ending. Apparently someone snatched up the bracelet from the floor and turned it in to Tercentennial Ball volunteers who reconnected the item to its grateful owner by night’s end. Sandy doesn’t know who found her bracelet, but she wants the finder to know that it has significant sentimental value to her, and that she is extremely appreciative it was turned it in so quickly.

Joanne Greco Rochman is always looking for ideas for Newtown 300, the cable program she’s been organizing on Charter Channel 21 this year. The program offers interviews and discussions from residents with historical insight, previews Tercentennial activities and reviews events that have already occurred. Even when she’s having fun – which she was obviously doing Saturday night – she’s always looking for program ideas. Joanne was taking plenty of photos during the ball, and making other people promise to share some of their photos too. She’ll be featuring many of those pictures on an upcoming episode of Newtown 300.

Also planning for the future while enjoying themselves on Saturday were Amber Edwards and Justin Scott, both of whom are on Tercentennial committees. Amber took a few minutes to introduce her idea for a tableau vivant – a series of “frozen” scenes of early Newtown to be acted out by residents. Amber is looking for people to be in the tableaux, people to work behind the scenes, and other talented people to offer performances between the frozen scenes.

Justin then reminded everyone that his committee is creating a coffee table book that will look at a year in the life of Newtown. He’s actively collecting photographs from anyone interested in submitting them, and they will be published in a full-color book to be released later this year. For information on either of these projects send an email to Newtown300@aol.com and Amber or Justin will get back to you.

Did anyone other than Laura Lerman notice the coincidence that the Chinese New Year, which began on Wednesday this week, happens to be the Year of the Rooster for Newtown’s Tercentennial year?

Last Friday was Women’s Heart Disease Awareness Day, and women everywhere were encouraged to “go red” for the day, which wasn’t hard for Mae Schmidle, since she goes red every day. But First Selectman Herb Rosenthal got into the act by donning his new red sweater for the day. Not to be outdone, attorney Bob Hall was seen changing his tie midmorning from an understated blue to bright red.

The Bee gets a lot of scouts and other groups of kids coming through the office on tours, and for many kids the most interesting part of the tour is the stop at the popcorn machine on the way out.  When we know a tour is coming, we always make sure the machine is well-stocked with fresh hot popcorn. Try as they may to eat it all, usually a fair amount is left behind on the carpet in the front lobby as a reminder of the whirlwind of youthful energy that has just passed through. We are used to cleaning up the popcorn ourselves, but last week, for the first time in our memory, one of the invited guests did the cleanup. Sandy Dakofsky, one of the den parents that accompanied Den 5 of Pack 170 on the tour, borrowed our carpet sweeper and made sure every last kernel was cleaned up before the scouts left. Den 5, you can come back anytime. We’ll mess the place up for you before you come.

For those who enjoy listening to a good book while taking long road trips, the Friends of the C.H. Booth Library have just donated funds for the library to subscribe to a downloadable audio books program. It will allow library patrons to download books 24/7 through the library’s website onto their MP3 players wherever those persons may be. The library staff is very excited about this offering, so be sure to ask them about it.

In my wanderings about town I’ve been noticing a lot of coughing and hacking and blowing of noses, and I suspect that it’s more than the occasional hairball that is making everyone sick. So I started asking around and got a few opinions. Sherry Paisley thinks the general malaise is the result of germs that didn’t get zapped early enough due to our warm fall weather. “The bad bugs didn’t freeze, they got dispersed!” Maureen Engel, APRN, at Family Health Care agrees. She thinks that all this lingering sickness is actually “a spin-off of the flu.” Whatever the reason, everyone is sick of being sick. Valentine’s Day is coming up on Monday, and I hope Pretty Kitty doesn’t show up for our date with a wad of Kleenex in her paw. A post-nasal drip is so unromantic.

With any luck, I’ll be back again next week, healthy as ever, so be sure to…

Read me again.