The Mysterious Package

My mother loves to send packages. If I ask her to send me something small I forgot at home, a hefty flat-rate envelope stuffed with goodies will arrive at my doorstep.

One such package arrived at my new home a few weeks after I arrived. Eagerly, I ripped it open. But what awaited me was hands-down the strangest substance I’ve ever been sent in the mail.

Seriously. Can you tell what this is? I couldn’t, and the more I examined it, the more baffled I became.

So I sent Mom a text.

At which point she sent me a voice message, absolutely screaming with laughter, to explain the situation.

You see, at the time Mom sent the package, she was starting a new diet that required her to eliminate dairy. Left with lots of dairy products in the fridge that she didn’t want to waste, she impulsively threw a large handful of string cheese sticks into a Ziploc and shoved it into the flat rate envelope, assuming it would easily survive one to three business days in the mail.

But it was so deformed by the time it arrived that when I sent her the picture, it didn’t even cross her mind that this was the cheese sticks. She assumed it was something random I’d found in my landlady’s freezer and wanted help identifying.

Needless to say, we had a good laugh. I still wonder sometimes what harrowing journey that cheese must have had to transform from neat, individually-wrapped cheese sticks into the monstrosity pictured above in less than a week.

And speaking of harrowing journeys…

The Harrowing Road Down the Mountain

My current residence is on a small mountain overlooking the city, and when I first arrived, I found it a bit harrowing to drive up and down all the time. But like with most things, once I got into the habit of doing it regularly, it wasn’t bad.

Most of the way down, the mountainside is so steep that there are no residences. But once you get near the bottom, there are more houses and streets.

One Friday night in early December, as I drove down the mountain to my first meeting with the local writer’s group, I saw a policeman parked across the road, directing traffic down the first of these side streets. So I followed his directions, and entered one of the worst traffic situations I’ve ever encountered.

It was around 6pm, with lots of folks coming home from work while lots of others, like me, headed out to their evening engagements. And all this traffic up and down the mountain was on these narrow, rutted side streets.

Frankly, these streets were not meant for two lanes of traffic. Given how large vehicles are these days, it could barely handle one lane of traffic.

I had the advantage of having a small car, but the disadvantage of low clearance, as the drop between the edge of the pavement and the ground looked about six inches or more.

Inch by inch, the two lines of traffic squeezed by with their side mirrors gently kissing each other. At one impasse, a man three cars back got out and shoved decorative boulders out of someone’s driveway so a pickup could scoot past.

I arrived to my writer’s group 20 minutes late, where I discovered that two other members also lived on the mountain and were similarly inconvenienced. One woman said she called her husband crying, which made me feel better about my own stress levels.

“Do you know what happened?” I asked.

“I’m sure it was a semi truck,” she said. And then proceeded to explain that Google Maps sometimes redirects truckers off the highway and over the mountain. As there is no warning sign, truckers have no way of knowing that the route down is quite treacherous for semis, and they often lose control and block traffic.

The Incompetent Starbucks

In the show “Gilmore Girls,” there’s a running joke that every time the characters go to the grandmother’s house, there’s a new maid, and the grandmother is complaining about a new incompetent thing she’s done.

That’s how I’ve felt at my local Starbucks.

Aesthetically, it’s a step above your typical Starbucks, with plenty of seating, stone pillars, and a huge fireplace that’s lit on blustery days. I have nothing against the staff personally, as they all seem like decent, kind individuals, albeit quite young.

But every time I visit there’s a new person behind the counter, and they always get my order wrong. Every. Single. Time.

Now, I’m not the type to make a fuss over an occasional wrong order. But it’s so egregious that I’ve become a Very Assertive Person. Now, my typical Starbucks interaction goes like this:

Me: I’d like a small English Breakfast Tea in my mug, please.

Employee: Punches buttons

Me: (carefully watching the monitor) I said a small.

Employee: Oh. (Punches different buttons)

Me: And can you give me the cup discount, please?

Employee: (Calls manager over. Manager explains. The cup discount is applied.)

I still don’t understand how it’s possible to go to a coffee shop 20+ times and NEVER receive the correct order without speaking up and asking for changes, but alas, I suppose I’ve found the Unicorn.

And to their credit, the one time I went my phone died and I hadn’t brought a backup payment option, and they gave me my tea for free. So I think that makes up for all the points I lost when they forgot to give me my cup discount, haha.

Lent

In the past five to seven years, I’ve noticed more and more Mennonites participating in some liturgical traditions like Advent and Lent. I’ve been intrigued and dabbled in some of these traditions, but I’ve never had a clear idea of how to participate.

Since I moved to Chattanooga I’ve been attending an Anglican church called “The Mission.” I didn’t exactly set out to be Anglican⁠—truthfully, I was just looking for a Church that followed the fundamentals of Christianity where I could plug in and find community. I attended The Mission because my cousin Jason went there, and as it fit the basic requirements, I kept attending.

I’ve discovered, through the season of Advent and now in the season of Lent, that it’s FAR more meaningful to go through these traditions with a church body than to try to do them on your own.

I wasn’t terribly familiar with Lent, besides the fact that you’re supposed to fast from something for 40 days before Easter, so my landlord gave me a short book to read⁠—Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal, by Esau McCaulley. I found it very interesting to compare the Anglican tradition, the Mennonite tradition, and the Baptist tradition that McCaulley references from his youth. Specifically in regards to things like feet washing.

Also, McCaulley mentioned in the book that every week is like a mini holy week, with Fridays as traditional “fast days” and Sundays as traditional “feast days.” During Lent, it’s common for people to break their fast on Sundays. But even during non-lent times, it’s common for Anglicans to fast on Fridays.

To Anglicans, communion is a “feast day” activity. They take communion every Sunday. They have a service on Good Friday, but they specifically refuse to take communion that day.

This is in contrast to Mennonites who, at least in my church growing up, only take communion on Fridays, especially and specifically Good Friday. In fact, the way McCaulley talked about Lent reminded me a lot of the way Mennonites practice communion—full of repentance and solemn reflection.

I enjoy the practice of taking communion every Sunday, but I’ll be honest that seeing it as a joyous “feast day” activity is strange to me. I still view it as a somber remembrance of Jesus death and my own sin. I mentioned this to my landlord, who grew up in the liturgical tradition, and he said that Anglicans view communion as looking forward to the joyous marriage supper of the Lamb.

Anyway. I’ve given up social media for Lent. I’ve been feeling rather desperate to get off. The Internet is a nasty place, turned extra-nasty post Trump election. I’ll still post my blog links, but I will not see or respond to comments, so if you have something to say, leave a comment here on my blog or DM me!

The Reading

Promoting my book has never been my strong suit, especially since I couldn’t really do book events when The Highway and Me came out in 2020. Some of my post-Covid events have been successful, while some were derailed during that trip in the fall of 2023 when Mom got Covid.

It didn’t occur to me to try and do an event here in Chattanooga until one day in January, when we did a white-elephant-style women’s book exchange at church. My friend Mariah sweetly decided to bring The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea to exchange, and she explained to the group what the book was about and told them that I had written it.

The other women in the room seemed really excited, and someone said, “we should have a reading here at The Mission!”

So, long story short, I spoke with some of the pastors about it, and they were all for this idea. They really value supporting the artists in their congregation.

The reading will be at 6:30 pm on Sunday, March 16, at The Mission Chattanooga (806 E 12th St). I don’t know if any of you blog readers are within driving distance, but you’re invited!

Until then, I hope Spring is Springing in your area, and life feels full of hope and promise. Longer days are coming soon, folks!

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