Things I Think About While Commuting

1. Why is it that businesses put a number (usually the number of their physical address) in their name to make them sound classy or more viable? Loft 266. Salon 15. Even Pho 54. And furthermore, why does this convince me? I seriously think, "Wow. I want to go there. 266. Must be cool." (Actually, it kind of is.)

2. CVS and Walgreens are currently fighting over flu shot customers. Walgreens is trying to convince people that "A flu shot gift card is a good gift." Is it? I'm not sure how I would feel if my birthday were in October and I opened up my birthday present and got a gift card that could ONLY be used to have someone in a white coat jab a needle into my arm. Meanwhile, CVS is offering "personalised" flu shots. What does that even mean? Decaf nonfat with foam? Huh?

3. People should not put bumper stickers on their cars. I am too fascinated. Someday? I will rear-end one of them. Especially those hippies that I want to be like. Their cars are essentially wall-papered. Even the light at Park and Salisbury isn't long enough for me to read all of their pronouncements. The vampire in the car next to me this morning with the "If it's wrong to eat humans, why are they made of MEAT?" bumper sticker . . . well. How would my morning have been complete without that?

4. Oscar peeing on a windy day is a dangerous thing. Make a note to tell all his sitters . . .

Auntie Times 2

Now that all his grandparents know, I feel like perhaps I can tell you that I have a new nephew! As of sometime today. His name is Patrick David, but not because of the holiday we just had. His big sister, TWCN, was babysat in part by esteemed blog-friend, K., whom I have never met in person, but with whom Dave and Sister-in-Lu have become quite good friends. Crazy connexions develop over the internet. Pretty cool sometimes, too, though, huh?

Congrats, Dave, Sister-in-Lu and TWCN! And Patrick, for that matter.

Thanks, K.!

It's That Time of Year Again

Actually, I guess I get older every day. But this is when everyone's all, "Hey--you're older!" And in case anyone didn't know enough to say it, I like to post it on my blog so they can: it's my birthday tomorrow.

We've already celebrated it. My parents are doing their Annual Summer Tour thing, where they come home and make sure their mothers are okay, and I'm okay, and this year they got to see their new little granddaughter, too. Then they came here, and on Sunday evening we had a nice dinner and I got my presents. In my family, we tell each other what we want for our birthdays and Christmas, because even though we know each other pretty well and surprises are awesome, it's also awesome not to feel like someone you love spent money for you on something you don't. Plus, none of us like to spend money on ourselves too much, so this is one way of saying, "If I were going to splurge on myself, I would get this, but since I'm not, you can get it for me!"

This year I was both pleased and surprised: I got what I asked for, and I got everything I asked for. (Also, the Milk Guy didn't get the wish list but managed to come up with some great presents all on his own.)

It isn't always thus, but this year, everything I asked for was books.

I feel like I should mention them, because they're all books I heard about from you, Dear Readers. One is LL Barkat's Stone Crossings, one is Tim Keller's The Reason for God, and one is NT Wright's Surprised by Hope. I didn't have to ask for Dave Zimmerman's Deliver Us From Me-Ville, because I already have it. But this new influx of reading gave me the impetus to finish that one (and a couple of others), so expect to hear more about it here soon.

In Which We Welcome a New Member of the Crazy Cousins

Can I just tell you how much I love my cousins? The ones from Mom's side of the family do something along these lines every time we get together. Even at Grandpa Madeira's funeral.
















Cousin Dave got married during part of that time between the Overly Delayed Flight and the Urban-Traffic-Like Headcold. The wedding was beautiful and grace-filled (which was needed, given some of the extraneous family dynamics). The reception was One Great Party. The cousins were . . . crazy. My sister-in-law was inducted into this batch of cousins this way when she married my brother, so we had to do the same thing to Liz. Congratulations, you two!

(If anybody noticed that the dress I'm wearing looks familiar--sorry. But thank you for reading my blog this long.)

The other exciting event during this time was that my Mom turned the same age as my Dad on New Year's Day. They look pretty great, huh?

Family at Christmas

My family's all getting together for New Year's and Cousin Dave's wedding, so I got to have Christmas a little differently than I have ever had it on this side of the Pond before. I went to work.

I worked with two Starbucks partners from other stores, one of whom is apparently disaffected from all religions except maybe Buddhism (if you feel like calling that a religion). He spent the morning saying pointedly to people who wished him a merry Christmas, "Enjoy your holiday." (Last post notwithstanding, I do think such corrections are annoying and unnecessary.) I was actually interested in the number of people who said "Merry Christmas," sort of quietly taking a deep breath, bracing themselves, and uttering it with a strange sort of tentative defiance. If people actually said it, I made sure I confidently wished them a happy one back. The other "borrowed partner," as we call them, is a Jewish girl who wanted to wish people a merry Christmas simply because that is indeed the holiday that was being celebrated on this particular day. But every time she said it, they said, "Same to you!" and she said that wasn't quite right, either.

Most of the customers were in good moods, particularly because we were open and they wanted their coffee. The tips were, I think, well-nigh phenomenal. Lots of our favourite customers came in to wish us a happy . . . something, anyway. I kind of got a stomach ache, though, when one guy came in who was spending this holiday on his own yet again. He's divorced, and he has kids, but he's never had them on any holiday that I can remember. He was, as usual and understandably, glum. Maybe more than that. I has nothing to do with me, but I felt almost gut-wrenchingly sad about it.

I was finished with work by noon, at which point I headed off to some friends' from church. They are an unusually hospitable couple. The surface of the table was crammed with food and the perimeter was nearly as crammed with people, some of whom were also divorced without their children in attendance. Personal circumstances aside, everybody still seemed genuinely to be enjoying themselves. We laughed and talked and ate a lot. I thought about the customer and thought he needed something like this.

I'm not going to idealise the Church here, or say that this kind of warm happy-family-like community is a given among believers and doesn't happen anywhere else. But the contrast was stark enough to remind me of Jesus and the reconciliation and hope and community that He came to bring--first with God, and then with each other--whether we always actually get it or not. I still feel sorry for the lack of it. But I am also thankful for the warmth I experienced today. I'm thankful for this on-line community, too. It's a little weird. (I'm not saying you are. I'm saying it is.) But there's warmth here as well. Thank you. And merry Christmas.

Happy Holidays

Having said that, here are some thoughts I've been thinking about the declawing of Christmas:

1. You didn't know it had claws, did you? Maybe it doesn't. (But it is the celebration of the human birth of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.) I'm pretty sure there was blood, at least. In spite of having some Roman Catholic sympathies, I'm not one, and I really think that Mary had a normal labour and there was blood. Although I have always enjoyed and probably always will enjoy Christmas trees and wreaths and pepparkakor, they don't particularly point to the reality of road-trips-via-donkey (or foot) and blood and dirt and naturally-scented animals. People get a little bent out of shape about the growing insipidity of Christmas, but it seems to me that, without the grit, it's always had the trappings to be insipid if we let it.

2. One day on one of my breaks I got in line to order and "mark out" a drink, and I asked for a "tall Christmas blend."

"A tall Xmas blend?" asked Kiran with a subtle tone of irony in his voice. (Yes, this is the same Kiran I drove home the other day. Please do not hold this against him. We actually had a chat in the car that day about whether I was "religious." It was interesting, but I don't feel I was particularly articulate.)

"No," I said. "Christmas blend."

I'm not really one to quibble about the whole "Xmas" thing. If people want to think they're neutralising the word, I can content myself with thinking about how "X" is the first Greek letter in "Christ." I don't feel like I need to argue about it, and frankly, if they're not celebrating Christ, why should they call it "Christmas"? However, I am celebrating Christ (or at least, I mean to--and I hope that's what I'm ultimately doing), and so I do not wish to be corrected for my use of the term--even when it's only in regard to coffee.

3. I also do not feel that I am selling out if I tell customers to "enjoy the holidays." Why would I wish someone a "Merry Christmas" if they don't celebrate it and/or celebrate something else? I do not suppose that by saying the words, "Merry Christmas" at someone I am magically converting them. And, as I have said before, if I wish to offend them, I'd rather do it in a context where we can discuss or argue about it almost immediately.

4. Christians in my neck of the woods seem to feel threatened by the fact that the big censorship trend now is to call Christmas trees "holiday trees." I join in the concern based on the fact that I do think it's censorship (I also think taking Oscar the Grouch off Sesame Street is censorship, though. Someone told me this was happening, although I have yet to find any documentation).

As I have said, I like Christmas trees. I have one, and I intend to keep having one. I also intend to keep calling it a Christmas tree. However, I would just like to throw this out there: it doesn't really have much to do with Christmas. And maybe, if we stop being allowed to slap the "Christ Mass" label on all the extraneous stuff that has come to be associated with the holiday, maybe we'll start to get the real holiday back. I'm not convinced that being able to keep calling public coniferous decorations "Christmas trees" is the way for Christians to keep their holiday.

Sometimes, for example, I wonder if calling the-obligatory-mass-purchasing-of-more-or-less-useful-material-possessions-for-other-people "Christmas shopping" is a little bit like taking the Lord's name in vain. I'm not saying it is. But I think it might be. If we separate things into "Christmas" versus "holiday" categories, we might just end up with unhelpful dichotomies, I suppose. We might compound our propensity to compartmentalise Jesus. On the other hand, if we actually started thinking about what we're calling stuff, we might start thinking about what we're doing. And then we might be able to be more intentional about how we celebrate Christmas--and really celebrate it.

In the meantime, I don't think people should call their winter holidays "Christmas" if they are in no other way acknowledging Christ. I wish everyone was celebrating that Jesus is God's Son, come to earth to set us free from ourselves. But if they're not yet, please, let's let them call their holiday something else. So that when they do meet the Incarnate God, they have a special name to call a special time of year that really has a lot more depth and meaning than tradition and nostalgia and presents and glitter and even family.

Crystal Ball

I don't actually wish I knew the future. But sometimes I think I wish I believed horoscopes were an okay decision-making tool. I'm probably inherently superstitious enough to believe one if I read it. Note: if you remember when my birthday is, this is not an invitation for you to read my horoscope for me and tell me what it says. I will be truly put out if you do. Truly.

But . . . this is why sometimes I wish I were okay with horoscopes:

How do you know when to take what's there, and when to wait for something better to come along? Particularly if there is a distinct "something better" in your sights, but you don't know if it's going to be offered to you?

You think I'm talking about dating, don't you?

Nope! I'm talking about jobs. On Thursday I interviewed with the SAT tutoring company. The guy who interviewed me looked like Matt Damon, which was a little unsettling, but apparently Matt Damon thinks I should work out just fine as a tutor. (I'm still not talking about dating. This Matt Damon, like the real one, is married.) The one thing he did keep going on about, though, was the fact that they "have very few students in [my] area." This did not surprise me at all, but given the fact that he told me this about six times, I am translating it as, "We currently have no students in your area." I said that was okay, but keeping in mind the price of petrol and the fact that apparently I am the type of person who might drive three hours on a flat tyre, I should possibly be having second thoughts about this.

In the meantime, just this week a friend of mine alerted me to an ESL tutoring position open at a local college. I applied there, too, and didn't hear anything back so, in the interest of decision-making, I sent the contact a little e-nudge this afternoon. Astonishingly, she wrote back at once--to tell me that they would hire when the semester is over, and that the job would start in January.

I don't know what the pay rate is for the ESL job. I do know the pay rate for the SAT job is pretty good, but I dare say my car will get half of it. Also, the SAT job requires signing a non-compete clause, believe it or not. On the other hand, that job has actually been offered to me. I have no idea if Ms. ESL is going to want to talk to me when the semester is over.

Thus the wish for some horoscopic guidance. Something like, "You will receive a tempting offer, but resist--something better is around the corner." Or, "The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but don't take risks this month--hang on to what you have." (Wow. Maybe I should just write horoscopes for extra money.)

Since I'm not consulting horoscopes, however, I'm left with the prayer option, which usually at least feels less clear and more frustrating. (Horoscopes are, of course, deliberately vague, but they sound like they're telling you something, so you feel like you can make some sort of choice.) God is sovereign, but I'm not, and I have no idea what He wants me to be doing these days. He knows my financial needs, and it seems like it would make sense for Him to provide for me by providing another source of income. (Then again, I have discovered God often doesn't do what I think would make sense.) I've been casting about for such another source of income since the beginning of the summer, and this SAT tutoring programme is the first thing in all that time to have materialised. So do I accept it as His answer and provision? Or do I trust that He has something even better for me which requires a leap of faith to relinquish the certainty for the not-so-certain?

I'm left back at James 1.5-8, I suppose, asking for wisdom and trusting that, since he said it will be granted, it will be. In the meantime, maybe I'd better stop thinking about horoscopes. It might be considered "wavering." So yeah. Don't check my horoscope for me. But if you think of praying for me instead, I'd really appreciate it.

The Golden Rule

So, I'm not trying to negate anything Jesus said because I really do believe He's God and that what He said is as true as it gets.

But I'm just going to throw out there that some things, when viewed from a limited human viewpoint, don't always seem to work out quite like we might think from the way He stated them. Like that whole "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" thing? Doesn't always turn out so well.

Here's an example.

While my parents were here, one of the supermarkets had a two-for-one sale on Friendly's ice cream. Not being one to pass up a sale--or ice cream--my father bought us two boxes. Of ice cream with peanut butter in it. Clearly the makers of Friendly's ice cream are on my dad's wavelength, if they have two different peanut-butter-laden ice creams. My dad loves peanut butter, and ice cream, and chocolate, so clearly it was an act of love on his part (though he was also sure to benefit in some way) for him two buy these two decadent flavours. But see, my mom's not as keen on peanut butter in her ice cream as he is. And me? Well, I'm in a phase of not even liking peanut butter very much. So what was a very well-intentioned purchase turned into something of a family joke, and my parents ended up palming off one of the boxes on Uncle Ted and Cousin Paul.

So what to do? Because sometimes you just don't know things about people. Even though our family is pretty close, there are still things we don't even know about each other. Grandma Madeira used to make lemon meringue pie for my parents quite a lot because she thought they loved it, when really it's about their least favourite pie of all. (I let her make it for me anytime, though, because I really do love lemon.)

And then what about the times you do know things about people, but what you would have them do unto you is different than what they would have you do unto them? Like, for example, Until-Further-Notice Peter's birthday is in a couple of weeks, and he professedly hates surprises. (I bring this up in the blog so as to mitigate the surprise factor a little.) But me? I love them. Not the scary kind, or the make-you-feel-like-a-total-idiot kind, but there are lots of really great surprises that don't make you fear for your life or feel like the entire world is smarter than you. I love being surprised and I love surprising other people. So, what I would have others (by which in this case I mean my friends) do unto me is, say, blindfold me and take me to Boston to picnic on a swan boat or something unusual and unexpected like that. But I don't think UFN Peter would be all that into whatever the guy-equivalent of that is.

So how do you follow the Golden Rule then, huh?

Blog-Day

My blog is one year old today. Soon it will be out of diapers and demanding access to public toilets everywhere.

Thanks to all you readers and particularly commentators who, in a very real way, make it what it is. Or who at least don't seem inclined to squelch me. You guys are great.

Happy Birthday to . . . oh . . . Somebody

Today I made myself obnoxious. I said to my favourite customers, "It's my birthday!" at random, because it is, and I could, and plus, no one else was telling them. I would have liked my colleagues to have slipped everybody a secret memo while I was off this weekend, celebrating my birthday before the fact, so that everyone would have wished me a happy birthday this morning. Well, I mean, I did get up at 3.45 for them all. I don't think they would begrudge me a tiny little birthday wish.

But my colleagues clearly hadn't thought this far ahead, so I had to announce it to everyone myself. Natasha-the-Mother-of-Three said, "Happy birthday! But if you're going to announce your birthday, you also have to announce your age." She was pretty insistent on this point, so at last I did, but not as loudly. One of the Three apparently exclaimed to her afterwards, "Wow! I thought she was 21!" Which was gratifying, if a little lacking in discernment.

Manager-Hillarie helped get the news out a little later by buying me a cookie-cake (as she does for people who are getting older in our store--which would be everybody), putting candles on it, and singing loudly to me in front of all assembled. After I punched out for the day, I sat at the bar for 20 minutes, eating frosted, half-baked cookie and reading the leftover Sunday comics. I could tell that I hadn't read any in a while because they all actually seemed funny.

My friend Brooks, who is considerably younger than I and also male, so one wouldn't necessarily expect him to remember things like this (sorry, but one wouldn't), gave me a mix CD yesterday. Plus another CD on which he features. And I had a nice chat on the phone with my long-distance parents. I will be talking to my brother and sister-in-law on the phone, too, in about two hours, and some time after that getting a glass of something not-joe with Cupppajojo who comments on here from time to time. Tomorrow I have the day off.

Also, it's really sunny outside and I'm about to go for a walk.

It really is a happy birthday.

Belated

The other day I visited my mom's blog, which I haven't done recently because she doesn't post on it much anymore (*ahem!*). And there, wouldn't you know, was a post, celebrating my dad's recent 60th birthday. You should go check it out. You'll see some fun photos of the Irish partying in honour of my dad. Plus, you'll see my dad, who doesn't look 60. At all. Here's hoping I inherit that trait . . .

Anyway, it occurred to me that here I've been writing about all these people who keep dying all over the place, and I should, because they deserve to be recorded. But there are also all the people who are living all over the place. And I'm certain I won't celebrate all of the ones I should (I just missed my brother's birthday, for example), nor as well as I should, but I did just want to announce to the world how grateful I am for my dad.

I love him. He's tremendous, in that quiet, soft-spoken way that somehow manages to make waves anyway. He's godly and wise, and also funny in that really-terribly-awful-pun sort of way that somehow manages to make you laugh anyway. (Well, some of us, at least. I think that might be an inherited trait, too.) I'm really grateful he's my dad, and I'm really grateful to be grateful, too, because you know, some daughters don't have that great a relationship with their fathers, but happily, I do.

January 16

Last Tuesday was my half-birthday. I don't really know why I'm so conscious of half-birthdays, except maybe because my parents were born on each others', and also, when you're a little kid and you're born in the summer and all your friends get to bring cupcakes to school on their birthdays but you're on vacation during yours, it was sometimes a big deal if your teacher let you bring cupcakes to school on your half-birthday instead.

I won't tell you what birthday last Tuesday was six months away from, but I will tell you it ends in a "5." And the first part is not "20."

On my half-birthday, I realised that it was ten years from the day that I moved to London. I could be a British citizen by now. I might finally have started to pick up an accent. I would not have forgotten all the charming slang I adopted. I would regularly interact with more than five people a week who have a largely different ethnic heritage to me. I might even be married to a Brit by now. (Or a Czech, or a Persian, or a Kenyan, or a Ghanaian, or a Turk.) Nah . . . probably not.

Sometimes I wish all those things were true, but there was this time in 2002 when it seemed like God was yanking me out of there by the hair, and I was kicking and screaming as usual, but I knew He was right. I still haven't figured out why, but I still feel He was right--and that for once in my life I actually heard Him properly. The last time I visited East London, instead of its feeling like home, the way it had the visit before that, it felt like a place I had never been before but knew exactly what to expect from. And I knew that that place was not where I was meant to be anymore, even though it had been.

But it really, really had been. I've done a lot of growing since I left London, but I still feel that London was where I really and first grew up. It was where I found my feet and where I learned to do things for myself and where I began to learn to love people. (I'm still learning that, I think.) I lived in my house with the yellow door, and I ate curry more than anything else, and I drank tea with refugees and walked around the sketchy parts of the city (i.e. my neighbourhood) ostensibly by myself and at midnight. I found out that I wasn't going to Hell (or even going to get drunk) if I drank wine within reason with the Eastern European au pairs. I found out that I wasn't going to go looney if I wept and prayed and worshipped with people who spoke in tongues. (And that I still belong to Jesus even though I don't speak in tongues.) I loved London and its people there.

I guess I still do.