On Being Sick

There are some things that are strictly necessary when one is sick.

1. Tea. Though tea is traditionally taken in mugs (and a mug that one can wrap both one’s hands around is distinctly preferred), the tea should be prepared in buckets because by the week’s end, one will have drunk seas of camomile and honey and lemon.

2. A hoodie. Clearly, this is so that one can pull the sleeves up over ones hands and then cross one’s arms in the perfect posture of “I feel very sorry for myself right now.” It also keeps one warm when one feels irrationally cold.

3. Soup. The flavor of soup will certainly depending on how volatile one’s stomach is. This food choice is especially wonderful because it does not require chewing (which takes up valuable energy), and because it is nice and warm (see above).

4. Chapstick. My lips are always determined to feel as miserable as any given part of me. Headache = chapped lips. Cold=chapped lips. Stomach flu=chapped lips. Dehydrated=chapped lips. Chapped lip’s copy-cat complex=silliness.

5. Mama. She is entertaining, and intuitive, and actually likes staying home with her sick children. Even when her sick child is 21. <3

6. Kleenex with lotion in it. Because for whatever reason, my nose likes to get as chapped as my lips.

Of course, having a great book to read or a really good movie is super helpful too, but since you’ll just fall asleep in the middle of it anyway, I figured they weren’t essential. Particularly if Mama is there. Catching up with her is way more fun anyway. I’m pretty sure just feeling loved by her makes you get half-way well.

Anyway, it’s not as if you didn’t already know what makes being sick better, but I hope this made you smile.

P.S. Please don’t feel too sorry for me. If I was actually desperately sick, I wouldn’t have the energy to write this blog post. : ) (and Mama took good care of me last night. So actually, it’s okay to be a little jealous.

Not In My Job Descriptions

The world is a perilous place my friends. There are spiders in it.

You never know when you may be called upon for heroic action. I thought work was a very safe place. The only thing approaching to nature in our nice indoor little office is a lone plastic tree which we have affectionately named “the forest.” There is nothing here for spiders.

Nevertheless…someone wonderful brought a load of boxes to the office and set them on the couch. That person is very thoughtful, and we definitely needed the boxes, but when my hardworking office-mate Destiny went to grab a box she discovered a HORRIBLE spider. He was the very worst kind–the ones with legs that arch to excess over his head. He wasn’t tiny. He was brown. He was so scary.

Also, he had chosen his position strategically. He wasn’t on a solid surface, just waiting to be smacked. Nope. This little creep was on the very far edge of an open flap of the foldable box. He could skitter underneath the flap in no time, and if he wasn’t completely dead on first contact, he could easily be flung either backwards deep into the couch cushions (shudder), or forwards AT US (GAHHHHHH!).

So. Though I had jumped up from my desk and whipped off my pretty red flats to do battle, this plan of action was clearly destined for disaster. Therefore, Destiny and I stood huddled together in front of the box, appalled at the situation that had sprung upon us. She suggested taking the box outside and flicking the spider out into the great unknown. This sounded like a plan likely to get the spider far away from me in a short period of time, so I was game. : ) She grabbed the box by the flap furthest away from the awful brown nasty and proceeded down the hallway towards the front door of the building. I asked her to move the spider-side of the box closer to the opposite wall so I could run past her to open the door. “And please keep it from jumping on me,” I pleaded, rushing past.

I opened the first door and hid behind it while the box came through. Then Destiny backed through the next set of doors and set the box down outside.

“Now what?” she asked.

I whisked off my shoe again, glad that my earlier heroics wouldn’t be completely wasted. I snuck up behind the gross, scary, many-legged one and, ninja-like, dealt him a decisive blow. He flew off the box, which Destiny quickly snatched away from him (lest he get any outrageous ideas about hijacking it again) and we darted inside as swiftly as possible. (He definitely looked like the kind that jump. Very far.) We were not taking any chances.

Once we had three doors and a hallway in between him and us, we regrouped. I checked my pulse. Destiny sat down. We both thought about making our way down to the counseling offices at the other end of the hallway. That, however, would have led us past the front door, where our little stalker might have been waiting for us. So we decided to hide in our office until the end of our shifts and then go out the back door.

Then I thought about the people I had seen in the hallway on our trip back to the office. There were definitely at least two grown men who had stuck their heads out of their offices to laugh at us in those treacherous moments. Oh brother. At least we lived. If that spider had eaten us (which definitely could have happened), they would have felt bad for the rest of their lives for not coming to save us while they had the chance..

Well, it’s almost time to go home. Pardon me while I run out the back.

What The Bird Said Early In The Year

I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear

‘This year the summer will come true. This year. This
year.

‘Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees

This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.

‘This year time’s nature will no more defeat you,

Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.

‘This time they will not lead you round and back

To Autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.

‘This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell,

We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.

‘Often deceived, yet open once again your heart,

Quick, quick, quick, quick!—the gates are drawn apart.

C.S. Lewis, Poems, (Harcourt: San Diego, 1992), 71.

Copiers Teach One to be Constant in Prayer

Copiers also resemble small children, in that, if you leave them even for a moment, they will do dangerous things, cram items where they do not belong, and generally turn everything upside-down and sidesways. Also, their insides are far more complicated than one could possibly have imagined, and therefore finding the root of any given problem is ludicrously difficult.
Hence the ceaseless prayer.

Sarah

Genesis 21:1
Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as He had said, and the
Lord did for Sarah what He had promised.

Oh how I love this verse.

Lifelong Dream II

(Editors Note: Before I begin, I should remind you that Lifelong Dream part I had to do with Snow White. End note.)

I wish I could watch airports all day long. It’s story central! When you’re waiting for someone to get off a plane, you are standing with a group of people with amazing tales of the reasons they are at that particular gate, waiting for that particular person. Families welcoming back their military servicemember who has been gone many days too long, grandkids dancing around waiting to bring grandma back for a visit, shuttle service people waiting for the executives they are escorting to an important meeting–the reasons are as varied as the number of people waiting.

The last time I flew, I realized that I always travel with my whole family, so there is never anybody waiting for me when I get off the plane–we just drive ourselves home! : ) I got to thinking how lovely the day would be when I a.) was grown up enough to travel alone, and b.) could walk out of that airplane and into the welcoming arms of someone I loved very dearly.

Enter this weekend: I flew out to Iowa (as you are well award) all. by. myself. It was so much fun. I love love love flying. Everything about it. I love airports, as we have discussed, I love taking off, I love watching out the window, I even really don’t mind turbulence. And, as long as it doesn’t endanger a connecting flight, or I am not ill with exhaustion, I kind of like layovers. : ) It gives me a chance to read. : )

And the best part of flying? I knew someone was waiting for me at the airport when I got home.

When I saw him, I totally should have just dropped my bags (I was practically the last one off the plane anyway) and run down the rest of the hallway to hug my man. Dear Sarah’s brain, please work in the moment every once in a while, would you? What a splendid feeling, to see him swing up out of his chair, and know he was going to be there at the end of that hallway, if I ever got to the end. I was exploding with happiness. Oh it was so good to see him.

So. There was lifelong dream fulfilled. My Jonathan, standing at the airport gate, welcoming me home.

Market Day

So Saturday morning, Mallory and her mom took me into Des Moines for Market Day. I think the first thing I noticed was the abundance of flowers. They hung from the pretty treet lights in baskets and booths were filled with wildflower bouquets. They were everywhere and they were beautiful.

It was fun to see things special to Iowa. For example, did you know gooseberries are real? I was only made aware of gooseberries’ existence by the million and a half times I watched Snow White as a little girl. (Snow White is in the middle of baking a gooseberry pie when her perfectly vile queen step-mother appears on her doorsetp hawking poisonous appples.) I just assumed from the context that the gooseberries were as fictional as the apples–you know, fairy tale food. Well, it’s not. (Untless Iowa is Fairy Tale Land, and I just missed it).

Anyway, Mallory’s mom bought us two gooseberrry pies. Important note: It must be eaten with vanilla ice cream, but when it is, it is AMAZING! : ) Description time! The berries themselves are the size of grapes and they are even red and green like grapes. But the outsides are striped like the outsides of watermelon. See? Here is a picture of me holding a bowl full. : ) They are oh-so-very tart. Red ones are sweeter than green ones. Also, I should let you know that the gooseberries in this photo are unusually large. Feel free to google image them for yourself if you want a less extraordinary example.

The long and short of it is that I ate gooseberry pie, like Snow White. I have always wanted to do that.

This is not the only special edible we encountered on our trek into town. At breakfast, Mallory’s sister told us to please remember to get Dutch Letters, which she explained were pastry wrapped around almond paste, shaped into an S and then sprinkled with sugar. Yes. This was also amazing.

While we were at the Dutch Letters vendor, I discovered that she was also selling cinnamon rolls that were bigger than Delaware. I exaggerate–but it truly was the size of my dad’s 20 oz. Batman mug he received for Father’s Day.

After perusing some lovely handmade jewlery, and unsuccessfully hunting for fresh corn, our last stop was a flower vendor to get Mallory’s mom some sunflowers. Her whole house ahs sunflowers wherever possible. They bring so much joy to her house, and her heart. By the way, while we’re discussing moms, Id’ like to mention that I am blessed with friends who have moms with whom I really want to be friends. I’d probably want to be friends with their moms even if I wasn’t friends with my friend. Of course, that gets tricky…Moms generally don’t befriend people who wont be friends with their child. So maybe it is a good thing that we’re all freinds. It makes everything much smoother.

As you can see, Iowa was was lovely.