Assorted chocolates

When I was flying home from Germany a month ago, I found myself in the Frankfurt airport with about eight euros in coins. Who wants to lug a big purse full of coins halfway across the earth? Not me -- not when coins can be exchanged for chocolate, and chocolate is available at the airport duty free shop. So I stopped in at the shop. I looked over all the chocolates on offer, in an attempt to maximize the amount of chocolate I could obtain for less than eight euros. In the end, I bought a bag of assorted flavours, not from Germany, or Switzerland, or other countries you think of when you think chocolate and you're hanging out in the Frankfurt airport. The chocolates in my bag were made in Serbia. At a pretty good price. And it was delicious -- enough.

This blog post has a few assorted topics, chosen to maximize value for money. Maybe the post was not made in the same part of the brain where the best, fanciest blog posts come from, but it was made not too far away. And it is delicious -- enough.

Topic 1. Shopping with the child. The child seems to be hardly a child anymore, as he is nearly as tall as I am. And yet, shopping with the child is still not as easy as shopping with a fully functional adult, even one shorter than I am. The child still insists on driving the cart. The cart has funky wheels, causing the child to turn his entire body each time he tries to go around a corner. Then once around the corner, the child is not content to wait while the mother (me) finds the item needed and puts it into the cart. The child instead runs up and down the aisle, narrowly avoiding other shoppers, until the mother says -- again -- that the child needs to stop. Does she have to take the cart away? Seriously, when does the child stop being so ... "helpful"?

Topic 2. The snugness of life. Three weeks have passed since classes started, and I'm feeling a little better. I'm finding some rhythm, some time to prepare for class and research and student meetings and breathing. All my tasks are fitting into the week, although honestly the week fits a little too snugly, like a shoe that's just a little too small. I should have bought the half-size bigger. But at least the rubbing has stopped a bit, and I'm not getting blisters on my heal.

Last Saturday was a turning point. I got up, ate breakfast, looked at the family and the calendar and the task list and realized that I wasn't needed urgently. So I went back to bed, and stayed there until past noon. And it was lovely, except for the mild headache I got, brought about by weird sleep patterns. This Saturday, Tim was away again, so I went shopping with the Child instead of sleeping. See above topic. I was more prepared for this Saturday after last Saturday, though. So all was well.

Topic 3. Church dinner. One of the many reasons life has fit too snugly is that I was in charge of a dinner for somewhere between 20 and 40 women and girls -- it's hard to estimate for a church event how many will really come. I was organizing the way I typically organize: we had a theme and an idea for food and activities, and a committee of people who were taking care of parts of it for me, and tasks I would have to do a few days before, a day before, the day of, etc. But the leader over me was super nervous that it would all fall apart. After many, many messages, her nervousness had transferred to me, and I was sure it would fall apart. Which made it difficult to do those tasks starting a few days before, a day before, the day of.... I would have rather crawled back into bed and stayed there until noon. But I didn't. And my committee came through. And the leader over me realized I was hopeless and pulled a few touches together on her own (thank you, leader). And the dinner happened and was really very lovely as far as dinners go, with around 35 people in attendance. And only two chickens and a box of rice left over.

Everyone kept thanking me for organising such a lovely event. If it had really been just me, though, it would have been a lot less lovely. Thank goodness for committees who care. And thank goodness that is over. Now I don't have to use those organisational skills for a couple more months.

Even though the title of this post is "assorted chocolates", really there were only three flavours in the bag I bought imported from Serbia. So I will end with those three topics. Enjoy.