Accepting Mercy On the Supermarket Line

I am watching the cashier at the local supermarket ring up my purchase.  $25.72. I pass over my singles, one at a time, then the two five dollar bills, then the four dollars worth of quarters I found in various nooks in my car. And I realize I am 72 cents short.

I am buying tonight's dinner - a full chicken for roasting, a bag of carrots and four sweet potatoes.

I am also buying a half gallon of soy milk, a dozen eggs, and a jar of applesauce because I plan to bake oatmeal raisin cookies on this rainy November night. I glance over my purchase. What don't we need tonight?

"Oh, let me put two of those sweet potatoes back," I tell the cashier.

The woman behind me in line smiles. She offers the cashier three quarters. "This happens to me all the time, " she says to me

For a split second, I feel embarrassed. I want to explain to her that my husband's paycheck clears at midnight tonight, that we are solidly middle class family with two jobs, a mortgage that is paid on time. Truly, I could have found those quarters on the floor of my sedan, I want to say.

But she's smiling and I realize none of that matters: whether I am temporarily without three quarters, or whether this is a daily occurrence.

She wants me to buy those two extra sweet potatoes and she was put in front of me so I could be humble and accept her gesture.

How often our pride gets in the way of seeing the hand of Our Creator. I like to think of myself as the giver, not the receiver: I'd spent part of my afternoon at the wake of a friend's father, a man who had had an often difficult life. I had actually been trying to list the  seven - is it seven? - corporal works of mercy on my drive home, patting myself on the back (figuratively of course) for driving to the wake and comforting this friend and never considering that I might be in need of mercy, too.

A world so free and profligate reveals your loving hand, O Lord. With dawn and all the gifts of day we praise you, Abba, breath and word.  
– Lauds and Vespers, Camaldolese Monks, OSB

How To Make Iced Latte Without Ice

I was inspired this afternoon to make an iced latte, following the directions of Danielle Walker, on her wonderful blog, Against All Grain. 

This, my friends, is not what my iced latte looked like:

My Silly Search for the "Real" Vermont

Tomorrow is our last full day in Vermont on our family summer vacation.  The Vermont Country Store in Rockingham is about four miles from the riverside cabin we are renting. I had the sense today that I must visit before I leave Vermont.  Why? I keep thinking I need to have a quintessential Vermont experience. In reality, I have been having "Vermont experiences" all week - from the stench of cow manure that wafts over to our cabin from the dairy farm next door to spending time with friends and relatives and having them share the challenges they face in their workplaces and in their families. This is what's real.

A Mall Visit Offers An Unseen Gift

Menlo Park Mall in Edison, New Jersey is one of the last places I wanted to be on a Wednesday night during Advent. And yet, I spent nearly three hours there tonight while our 16-year-old shopped for a winter coat and some clothes for upcoming Christmas parties. I spent most of my time sitting in the food court and contemplating what Monseigneur Luigi Giussani called "the domination of preconception, the tyranny of prejudice."

You see, the mall visit shattered a lot of my preconceptions and consequently brought me  gift I did not foresee.

How Artisanal Jam Is Maturing My "Economic Spirituality"

I'm an ordinary American consumer. Most of our Christmas purchases will be products made in China; our older son is getting a laptop (he knows about this so I am not spilling the beans) and my husband wants a treadmill. The 13-year-old's gifts, which are surprises, include stuff made in China.

Photo from abcnews.com

That said, I try as much as possible to think about what I am buying and to find products that are made locally, produced by Americans or under fair-trade conditions. Clearly, I am not a purist about this; heck the MacBook I am writing this on was made in China. Still, the recent factory fire in Bangladesh, where 112 workers were killed, served as  a sobering reminder that my purchases are moral choices.

Just for Fun: Christmas Decor Linkup

I haven't done a linkup in a long while and figured this one would be a way to show off how we have decorated our home so far. Right now, we are focusing on Advent; we plan to buy and decorate our tree over the weekend.

So....here's what we have up so far.

First, the front door Chez Trevor:

Our front door. I bought the "family basket" many years ago at a Christmas craft show. The Saint Nicholas is actually a puppet I ordered online this year from the fabulous Holland, Michigan-based St. Nicholas Center. 

In The Market for an American-made Vera Bradleyesque Bag

This school year it seems, these bags are ubiquitous at my high school. Instead of lugging books and notebooks in utilitarian backpacks, female students are sporting the sweet and sturdy bags. And my teaching colleagues buy Vera Bradley laptop cases. "You can wash them," they gush.

I'm not a trend follower and I am happy with the large blue leather bag into which my graded papers, my pencils and pens, and my post-it notes go as I travel from one classroom to another. But lately,  I've  have been longing for something prettier to schlep my work down crowded hallways between classes.  I'm watching other teachers walk by with their totebags patterned in Buttercup, Twirlie Birds Navy, and English Meadow.

Shopping in the Landscape of Loss

My husband and our 12-year-old headed to a soccer store tonight to pick up some goalie gloves and shin guards. It was a store my husband never had been to, and I called ahead for directions. "They could have just told us," my husband said. "That it's in the shopping center with no other stores in it."

The day before, I drove the same son to an art supply store a few towns away to buy paint for a school project. The store was shuttered. On the drive home, I noticed the Harley-Davidson dealership in our town is gone, along with a new restaurant that never made it past its third month.