‘oranments’

This week at work, I am sorting ALL Xmas, ALL THE TIME.
One minute before our holiday potluck lunch, I unpacked this sweater. I immediately put it on and wore it to the break room.

oranments
mostly little
round

I. A plan, a plan

I'd made barbecue with chicken thighs from the food shelf--what I would have brought anyway for my hot lunch Weds.
I ate in 5 minutes and went back to sorting.

I am on a roll: must get the last stash out this week!
A coworker commented we've never gotten so much Xmas stuff out before. Because there's been no plan.

I suggested one:
How bout if we sort and price Xmas donations as they come in throughout the year? Then on Nov 1., it's a matter of just putting it out.

Big Boss agreed this was a good plan.

II. Another plan

You know who has plans?
Vigilantes.
The guy who shot the health care CEO was carrying a manifesto. (I don't know anymore about it--I'm not following this closely.)
That struck me because Tim McVeigh also carried a manifesto when he blew up the Oklahoma City federal building...

Violence is so tempting when you feel your cause is righteous.
So much less sexy, so much more tedious are the works of pacifism...

"There is plenty to do", Dorothy Day said, "for each one of us, working on our own hearts, changing our own attitudes, in our own neighborhoods.
"The works of mercy, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, nursing the sick, visiting the prisoner...."

--"In Peace Is My Bitterness Most Bitter", 1967

There's a manifesto.

III. Lemon juice on oats

Speaking of bitter, it's  –7ºF (-14C) here this morning.
I'm baking a squash as an excuse to have the oven on. And I'm eating a big bowl of hot oatmeal and blueberries. It's my day off-- I'm going to stay in, put on Christmas carols, and clean/organize my apartment. Like, I need to gather up a bunch of stuff to take back to the store.

My Kenyan coworker had been pestering me for a lemon squeezer.
I kept telling him I was sorting Xmas, but he kept asking every day.
As these things go, though, sure enough on Day 5, I saw a lemon squeezer in incoming donations.
He was overjoyed!

I asked him why he wanted one, and he said, "Mine broke."

"But what do you use it for?"

"To make lemon juice for porridge."

Lemon juice in porridge? He said he would bring me some, and he did! He and his wife grind oatmeal in the blender and make what is a thick, hot drink with lemon juice and "a little sugar".

I wasn't going to tell this nice guy that I'm not eating sugar, so I drank it, and it was very little sugar, as it turns out. It really was a zingy, oat drink. Unexpected!

The Marzipan just called--she is writing the last paper of the semester! (It's a few degrees colder in Duluth, but both cities are due to warm up in a couple days.) It's unexpected to me--and impressive-- how hard Marz has worked this, her first semester, even on the one class she ended up disliking.

I only work hard on things I like.
Like the store.
I didn't want displays to be Christmas only, so I set up the few Hannukah things we have on the endcap you first see when you walk in the store.
At first it was gold and blue, but stuff sold right away, and now it's pretty random. Anyway, not Xmas. (But, oops, I should've changed out the red cloth from the last display--will do that tomorrow.)