gratitude

Starting #TToT

December 28, 2024 Sally3 Comments

One of the other bloggers who participates in The Unicorn Challenge, Clark from The Wakefield Doctrine, posts Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) every Saturday. He actually mentioned ME a time or two — when he liked the piece I had written for The Unicorn Challenge — which took me by surprise, but also got me scanning the list each week.

Looking ahead to 2025, I want to be more thankful. Life has been hard and pity parties are so easy to attend. I have other resolutions that I’ll post in a few days, but I’m going to start to today with this one: Post Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) on Saturdays as a look-back on specific moments in my week.

My Ten Things of Thankful will NOT be things like FAMILY — even though I’m incredibly thankful for my incredible family — or MY JOB — even though I am mostly thankful for both my jobs. No — I’ll give you specific moments for which I am thankful.

The 96 Chair Debacle — When an order for 24 chairs showed up as 24 BOXES of chairs (4 chairs in each box), I felt slightly panicked. They had been ordered for the senior program and I wasn’t sure where the error was. In the meantime, 24 boxes of chairs filled the lobby space. A little bit of problem solving and we all laughed. I am thankful for laughter. And an excess of chairs.
Ready to crawl — I saw my newest granddaughter on Christmas Day on all fours, rocking, and smiling up at me when I went to retrieve her from a nap. Very cute.
Woodstoves — I house/cat sat for a friend who has a woodstove. What a cozy source of heat! I love sitting by the stove and reading.
Paid vacation — Do you remember the first time you were able to take paid vacation? I do. Forty-some years later it has not lost its luster. I took Monday off as a vacation day, then had Tuesday-Wednesday as paid holidays. With the weekend preceding those three days, it meant that I had FIVE days off in a row, three of which were paid. Heaven.
Christmas dinner — On Christmas Day, my oldest daughter hosted the dinner. It’s always a joy to sit down to eat with family — four of my children, one spouse, one grandhcild, my brother, and one close family friend.
Rum balls — Those rum balls given to me by a member/friend (I mentioned them in my Christmas 2024 post) have been AMAZING. He should add that much rum every time.
A dead mouse — Yes, you read that right. I walked into my bedroom the other night and there was that distinctive “dead” smell. I was still house/cat sitting at that point, so I didn’t have to sleep in the room (yet), but I got out a flashlight and searched for the culprit. No luck. The next few nights I stayed in one of the other bedrooms and searched when I could. Today I cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned. I still can’t find it. But I AM thankful for a much cleaner room!
Swimming — only another swimmer would probably understand that Zen-feeling of swimming laps. I started swimming again because my hip is hurting, but it provides mental health as much as hip relief. Thankful for the pool, the ability to swim, and an aching hip that drove me back to the water.
Brooks Chicken — I love Brooks Chicken! It’s a local barbecue chicken place. One of my co-workers retired and it was the chosen fare for his retirement party this past week. I was thrilled. If you’re ever in upstate New York, I highly recommend checking it out.
Bowling — My 5 year old granddaughter came to where I work and went bowling yesterday. It was SO nice to see her and the whole family!

Faith

Christmas 2024

December 24, 2024 Sally9 Comments

The other day I had a woman in my office making the obligatory small talk of the season.

“Are you ready for Christmas?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, “not even close.”

“Well, have you at least set up your tree?”

“No,” I said, wishing the conversation over, but she was persistent. She told me that she had three trees and their Christmas village set up. She had started shopping in August, and that she just had to buy gifts for her cousin’s granddaughter and her neighbor’s niece and she would be all done.

“No, I haven’t done my shopping either,” I told her.

“You’ve got to do something,” she said.

I thought for a minute and then said, “I’ll get out the nativity set tonight.”

She beamed at me and went on her way.

I didn’t get it out.

The truth is this has been a very hard season. Thanksgiving was rough. December has gone downhill from there.

I could bore you with all details of my messy life, but suffice it to say that it’s like the matted fur of a cat that doesn’t groom itself and becomes impossible to get a comb through. And that matted mess shows up in the worst places. Ignoring doesn’t fix it.

I need to do something — but it’s not Christmas decorating.

The only semi-Christmassy thing that I’ve done is read an Advent devotional called Watch for the Light. It’s a book I’ve read before, but it beckoned to me from the shelf and I heeded its call.

Yesterday’s devotional in it was by Annie Dillard: Bethlehem She describes going to ground zero in Bethlehem, to the very place where Jesus was born.

As if, I thought skeptically, we know where that is.

I have a friend who says the Christmas story is just a fable, a nice tale made up by people, but without a lick of truth to it.

I think he is just as wrong as the ground zero crowd who make their pilgrimage to the place Dillard describes: “A fourteen-pointed silver star, two feet in diameter, covered a raised bit of marble floor at the cave wall. This silver star was the X that marked the spot. Here, just here, the infant got born.”

She goes on a few paragraphs later, “Any patch of ground anywhere smacks more of God’s presence on earth, to me, than did this marble grotto. The ugliness of the blunt and bumpy silver star impressed me. The bathetic pomp of the heavy, tasseled brocades, the marble, the censers hanging from chains, the embroidered antependium, the aspergillum, the crosiers, the ornate lamps — some human’s idea of elegance — bespoke grand comedy, too, that God put up with it. And why should he not? Things here on earth get a whole lot worse than bad taste.”

Things here on earth get a whole lot worse than no Christmas decorations, too. Seriously.

Here it is, Christmas Eve. The bits of red and green in my kitchen are not decorations I got out, but gifts.

A Santa tin filled with rum balls. The man who gave them to me apologized, “Usually my wife makes them, but, you know…” His voice trailed off. I did know. Her dementia is more and more evident. “I may have added way too much rum,” he said. We both laughed.
A plate of cookies topped with a bow, another gift from one of my regular office visitors.
A wrapped gift that is clearly a book. “Put this under your tree,” the person who gave it to me had said. I hadn’t the heart to tell her that I had no tree.
A few other small wrapped gifts, the kind co-workers give each other. My unfinished gifts still sit on my desk.

And yet, and yet — into this undecorated unholy world, I welcome the Christ.

Lord knows, I need Him this year more than ever.

He doesn’t give one whit about the trappings. He wants to patiently unmat the mess that is me. The question is, will I let Him?

Uncategorized

A Slower Tempo

December 17, 2020December 17, 2020 Sally1 Comment

Take your time and expect them to take theirs. Be very tolerant. Be as undemanding as you can. This slow tempo will help the contemplative side of your life: but if you get in a frenzy and want quick results, you will run into spiritual disaster. I repeat, disaster.
Thomas Merton, Seeds of Destruction, letter to a Papal Volunteer leaving for Brazil

Early yesterday morning I shopped at a warehouse store during their senior citizen hour. Yikes — yes — I qualify as a senior. I thought it would be a zip-zap-zoom trip. Nobody else would be there so I could grab my things and get home pretty quickly.

I was wrong.

It turns out that senior citizen hour at a warehouse store means that most of the shoppers are driving their shopping carts instead pushing them.

They drive slowly.

Down the middle of the aisle.

And stop frequently.

Zip-zap-zoom turned into wait-wait-wait.

I remembered taking my father to Target in past few years and he tried to drive one of those carts. I guess it’s not as easy as it looks.

I laughed when I read Thomas Merton this morning. He was writing to a volunteer heading to Brazil in the early 1960s. The different country, the different culture — it fit so perfectly with my shopping expedition. The slow tempo did indeed help the contemplative side of my life. I paused and listened to the Christmas music playing in the store. I prayed for patience when I realized that those one-way arrows on the floor don’t apply during senior hour. I prayed for a shopper who was struggling and short-tempered. I helped someone find something.

The warehouse store may not have been Brazil but it was another world.

What is Christmas, though, if not a venture into another world? The ultimate venture.

Lord, let me take my time and be tolerant,
not just at Christmas, but all the time.
Christmas is a good season to begin.
The world feels disastrous enough.
I don’t need to add to it.
Amen

dementia

Important

December 21, 2018 Sally4 Comments

My Rabbit Room gift exchange package ready to be mailed.

I took part in the Rabbit Room gift exchange this year. Below is a letter for the person whose name I drew.

Dear Rabbit Room Gift Exchange person,

I am so so sorry.

Spoiler alert: I bought a Baseball Hall of Fame cap for you. Since I live in Cooperstown, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, I included some something from there with my RR gift. I know, there’s nothing rabbit-y about the Hall of Fame, but it’s a little piece of me. Cooperstown is where I live and the Hall of Fame was my first job. There’s some more rabbit-y stuff in the box, too.

The baseball cap sat on the piano in the living room blithely waiting to be wrapped and mailed.

The other morning I went to check on my father. He has some dementia. From the dining room I could see he wasn’t in his chair. When I went in, I found him by the piano wearing your cap. It was awkwardly perched on his head because he hadn’t noticed the cardboard inserts inside the cap. He had, however, ripped off the tags and held them crumpled in his hand.

“DAD!” I fairly shrieked. You would have thought he was about to burn down the house.

He looked up at me, startled.

“No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-NO!” I said. “That’s NOT YOURS!”

Clearly he didn’t understand what was happening as I pulled the cap — your cap — off his head. I stomped off to the coat room, found a Red Sox cap, and brought it back to him.

“Here,” I said, not very nicely, “You can wear this one all day and all night. This one is yours.”

“Why would I want to wear a baseball cap all night?” he asked innocently.

I changed the subject. “This one,” I said, waving the Hall of Fame cap under his nose, “is a gift for someone.”

He looked at me blandly.

“It’s not yours,” I said again.

“I didn’t know it was something important,” he said.

“Yes, it’s important,” I said, even though I knew in my heart that it wasn’t.

For the next hour, he brought me things and asked the same question every time.

The first was a bobby pin — “Is this important?”

Then 17¢ in loose change — “Is this important?”

A scrap of paper with a grocery list written on it — “Is this important?”

A photograph.

A book.

A garden stone with the word “SUN” carved into it.

A spool of thread.

“Is this important?”

After about the third thing, it hit me how unimportant things are.

“You’re important, Dad,” I finally told him — and was glad for the lesson that I learned.

So I’m sorry about the crumpled tags that I stuck in the cap before I wrapped it for you. They served as a reminder to me of how easily I lost sight of what is important.

Enjoy the cap. May it (and this little story) remind you not to lose sight of what’s most important.

Merry Christmas!

The funny shaped package is a baseball cap.

family

Zaengle Family Gift Exchange 2017

December 26, 2017 Sally6 Comments

This is for Leah. She said she wanted to hear about our family gift exchange this year.

We do two gift exchanges within our family. Sam nicknamed them — Nifty and Thrifty. The Nifty exchange is a “real” gift, with a spending limit of $50 (although we aren’t terribly strict about that). The Thrifty has a spending limit of $10 and can be something from a yard sale, thrift store, or something homemade (and we aren’t terribly strict about that one either).

We draw names about two months before Christmas and then commence with plotting, planning, and fretting. We’re a family of givers — and everyone wants to give the best gift.

This Christmas Eve, when the family was gathered — although some joined us from afar through the magic of FaceTime — I asked, “How do we begin this?”

Someone started giving me the history of the whole thing. “I think we decided to draw names, like, five years ago when…”

But I interrupted. “No. How do we begin? Like, how do we begin the gift-giving?” I honestly couldn’t remember. I’m not sure anyone else could either, so we drew names out of a hat. And then, because my memory is poor, I’ve already forgotten who went first.

Helen was early on. I remember that. Philip handed her a huge box.

She sat in front of the camera so our Canadian family members would have a good view as she opened it.

“This is every little kid’s dream,” she said, “getting the giant box for Christmas.” It’s not every child’s dream to get a crockpot for Christmas, though. That would be a young adult’s dream — to come home to a delicious-smelling apartment with dinner ready to eat.

I had drawn Owen’s name for the big gift and gave him chickens. Not actual chickens then and there. I gave him a feeder, a waterer, and some other chicken paraphernalia. My father gave him a gift certificate for a place that sells chicks. I had debated between chickens and bees, seeking advice from knowledgeable friends, and the chickens won.

Laurel had drawn my name. She gave me spatulas — the one thing on my list — and then teamed up with Donna (who had drawn Bud) to give us a gift certificate for a nice restaurant in town so Bud and I can go on a date sometime. I really appreciated that. Bud and I don’t have enough time together.

You know your children are adults when some of the nifty gifts are bourbon. Others got clothes. All in all, the big gifts are always an opportunity to purchase one nice thing for a family member.

My favorite, though, is the thrifty. It’s an opportunity for thoughtful creativity. Laurel made bath bombs. Mary made homemade oreos. Emily gave Mary her old ukulele.

Amanda had drawn my name. She gave me some maple candy from Mexico. Mexico, NY, that is. Upstate New York is delightfully confusing with towns named Cuba, Poland, Chili, and Mexico, not to mention Copenhagen, Rome, Amsterdam, and Warsaw.

I purchased a groupon for a photo book (to stay within the spending limit) and made a little photo book for Philip with poems to go with each photo.

Each poem tells a little story about young Philip. My hope is that he’ll read them to Henry.

Here’s the poem that I’m reading in the picture. The last line is what Philip said to me when I went to the hospital in labor for Owen:

Mommy had a baby growing in her belly.
Little Philip said to her, “I want you to tell me –
Where did the baby come from?
How did he get in there?
When will I get to meet him?
What will the baby wear?
Can the baby see me?
Can he peek out somehow?
Will you let me hold him?
Why can’t we see him now?”

So after months of questions
And Mommy growing rounder
One day she went to hospital
And Philip waxed profounder –
“I don’t know what to call this thing
That you’re about to do
But it has to do with baby,
and it has to do with you
And from everyone’s reaction,
it’s a GOOD thing, there’s no doubt.”
So he kissed Mommy and whispered,
“Have a good baby-coming-out.”

And that’s pretty much it. Any questions?

family

Overlap

June 12, 2015April 20, 2017 Sally4 Comments

The following is the text of what I read at the reception for Sam and Donna, my newly-married son and his beautiful wife. Enjoy.

Once we had a guy re-shingle our carport roof – a mostly flat roof, only slightly pitched downward from house to gutter. Bud uttered a minced expletive when he saw what the workman had done.

I thought the roof looked good with its neat black lines of overlapping shingles.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“He did it backwards,” Bud complained, but I still didn’t understand.

I’m slow to understand construction problems. I had to look at it for a long time before it sunk in. The shingles overlapped in the wrong direction. He had started at the top and worked his way down, so where they overlapped rain could work its way underneath the next shingle.

But this really isn’t about roofing or shingles or mistakes made in shingling.

It’s about Sam and Donna.

And it’s about the way our lives overlap, like shingles properly installed on a roof.

It’s about Sam’s first Christmas.

Not his first Christmas as a baby. He probably didn’t even get any good gifts that year. With him being the third child, I had figured out that babies almost one year old don’t care very much about shiny new toys. Hand-me-downs are fine as long as they come wrapped with paper that can be ripped into tiny pieces and with curly ribbon that can be waved and boinged.

Honestly, I couldn’t even find any pictures of Sam’s first Christmas. It was that non-monumental. The plight of the third child.

No, this is about the first Christmas when, as an adult, Sam didn’t come home.

“I just don’t get enough days off,” he told me, “and the holidays are such a busy time at the store.”

“What will you do?” I asked. “You can’t spend Christmas alone.”

“No worries, Mom.” He likes to say that. He knows I worry. “I’ve got several invites.”

“Who,” I asked, demanding to know, trying to make him a little accountable.

“The store manager invited me to spend Christmas with him and his family,” he said.

Perfect, I thought. Maybe the manager will like him so much he’ll start giving him better hours.

“Dan and Lindsay invited me, but I’d have to get over to the island,” he said.

Victoria Island. I had never met Dan and Lindsay, although I had heard stories about them and their child, Denali. I had chatted with Lindsay once on Facebook about the nutritional value of hemp. That could be a good choice, I thought.

“And a friend from school invited me to spend Christmas with her family,” he finished.

“Who is it?” I asked, like I might possibly know.

“You don’t know her,” he said, reading my mind.

“You should go to your boss’s house,” I told him. It seemed like a good career move.

When Christmas arrived, he didn’t go to his boss’s house. He didn’t go Dan and Lindsay’s house. He went to some stranger’s house, some girl I didn’t even know.

We skyped Christmas morning.

“Hey, Mom,” he said, “Donna’s mom wanted me to tell you that she gave me a hug today. She said that every mom would want to know that her child got a hug on Christmas.”

I laughed, and thought it was so sweet, and wondered how awkward that hug was. We’re not the most huggy family.

Donna. Sam referred to her as his friend from school. “We’re just friends,” he told me. At Christmas.

Six weeks later, around Valentine’s Day, I got this message on my cell phone – ““Hi, Mom, this is Sam. I was just calling because I have some exciting news. I have a girlfriend. Her name is Donna and she’s pretty much awesome…”

The rest, you know, is history, with more history being made here today. Sam and Donna.

Where do the shingles tie in?

It’s in the overlap.

While I was fussing because I would really rather have had Sam home for Christmas, God knew that it was important for Sam to be somewhere else that Christmas.

You see, that was Donna’s mom’s last Christmas.

Ruth Mayer’s last Christmas.

Her only chance to hug Sam on Christmas morning.

Her only chance to fuss over him and make his Christmas special.

No one knew that at the time, but it was a perfect overlap of lives, where Sam could meet her, get more than a hug, actually spend some time with her – and then, months later, be there to support Donna, to cover her protectively, like an overlapping shingle going in the right direction, so that the sorrows could be shared and run off both of them together.

Sam’s first Christmas away may have been his most important Christmas – until this coming one, Christmas 2015, when he and Donna will have their first Christmas as husband and wife, together, building a life with each other.

Sam, Donna — May your shingles always overlap in the right direction.