Thank You For Shopping

 Our local grocery store is undergoing a renovation which translates to moving all the grocery items around so you can't find them, ripping up the floors every night so we walk on scraped concrete in the day, and filling one-third of the parking lot with fenced-in equipment, supplies, boxes and trash. It's a slight pain, nothing big, really. Until I saw that they planned to get rid of three of the regular checkstands and put in those annoying self-help checkstands. Okay, okay for those of you who love them, let me guess why: no waiting in line, can control the pace, you love the annoying voice that narrates your entire transaction and you enjoy the game of Where Do We Put The Money, along with Where Does The Money Come Out. I use these at Home Depot. A can of paint is not a big deal and the weigh machine is NOT confused that there is an item that has been moved to the bag. It doesn't ask you to place the item in the bag over and over. But how is this good in a grocery store, where a jalapeno chili requires three screens of look-up and when all's said and done probably the bag it's in weighs more than the chili? Or if one of the PLU stickers is off of the zucchini (you get extra points if you know what PLU stands for, or even what it is when the annoying digital lady voice tells you to look for it) that you have to know to hit the pumpkin screen because it is, after all, a squash and then hit the squash screen again and then don't hit the cucumber screen but instead the zucchini screen and there's no way to fix your dumb error and you're really hungry and all you wanted was some vegetables (you lose extra points if you use the word "veggie" around me) to go in your salad and where's the REAL person? She arrives and you just know she worked in a dental office before she came to work at the Grocer's and is firm, but pleasant and no nonsense and you wish you had gone through the checkstand with the tall lady with the hair that's upswept platinum and takes a half of a can of hairspray to keep it balanced while she enters your PLU codes and smiles the whole time even though her lipstick is outside her lip line and bright pinky-red, she's infinitely better than the digital lady voice saying for the third time, THANK YOU LOYAL CUSTOMER PLEASE TAKE YOUR CHANGE, and you would if you could only figure out where it is.

Homage to Barbara

(Barbara plays with her new daughter.)

Today is the day I leave my daughter's and head home. Last night after we said our good-nights, I went to my room and wept. She is my only daughter, named for my mother. I know some of that emotion is simply coming to the end of a busy and long week, but some of it is also saying good-bye to someone I love more than my own life. I admire so much about her. She, even with her heart disease, runs a tight ship--although it feels less so to her currently. The kindergartner nearly always has her clothes chosen for school the night before. The backpack has already been gone through, the papers to come home swapped out for the papers to go back. My daughter, raised in a "we'll be there just in time" household has an iron-clad rule that everyone should be anywhere on time, and ten minutes early is even better. So her child is never late for school and we were there early for pick-ups. Her laugh is contagious and she ministers well and faithfully to her coterie of friends, many who have returned the favors since her diagnosis with picking up children, play dates, meals brought in and going the extra mile for her. When she was first diagnosed, I wanted to bring her home with me, put her to bed and take care of her children--a mother's impulse that soon gave way to more rational thinking. She has a good man for a husband, and he is good to her. I realized that she had to, in essence, put in motion a giant machine to help her in getting better. But she also had to build that machine, one cog at a time: getting the day care or friends to help with their two-year old son, finding someone to help with housecleaning, finding doctors, and being willing to accept meals and help--a difficulty for a woman who has always taken the meals to others. But the cruelest cut of all--the realities that this condition imposes on abilities, expectations, and her joie de vivre--has been deep and swift. In this, we both suffer, kicking against these deep pricks of the soul. Yet, she is radiant and beautiful and so full of love for her children. In short, she is amazing. I'll think of her as I drive home across another desert--the Mohave with its grand sloping from high to low desert--the vista stunning, spare and humbling. I'll think of our busy week, sewing skirts for her two daughters, running errands, our talks throughout the day. When she was born, I began embroidering her birth sampler, but set the crewelwork aside after a few months, dissatisfied. I started another, a clean-looking cross-stitched design depicting a little pink baby swinging from a pink safety pin. The caption was simple and succinct.

Thank Heaven for Barbara. 

 

Update: I later found this comment on my blog:

 

Abundance

 I'm posting this very early Phoenix time, as I'm on the next leg of my trip: to my aunt's funeral in a neighboring state. The drive out here was brain-clearing. Compared to the lush eastern coasts of this country, the deserts seem harsh, barren and unwelcoming. But I found abundance today in the wildflowers blooming all along the highway: sage-colored bushes that look like they have heads of hair standing on end, and at the end of each strand of hair is a golden-yellow blossom. The spiky lavender flowers, low to the ground, edge the asphalt, followed by carpets of neon-yellow blossoms. I tried to take pictures as I zipped along at 75 mph, but none of them were worthy photos for a Slice of Life post. However, I do have a photo that is worthy: my granddaughter Brooke and me.

And a photo I take with every child of mine: their hands intertwined with their newborn's.

Abundance, indeed.