U is for the Uther Woman

     Yes, I know “uther” should be spelled “other.” Sometimes I choose to spell things incorrectly like the rest of my fellow Americans.

This is not my telephone.

     Rachel* started calling my home over a month ago. “Is Gene there?” She sounded young.

     “No. Can I take a message?”

     “Tell him I need to see him.” She gave me a number. I didn’t write it down. 

     After that, she called frequently. My sons talked to her. I don’t think they wrote down her number, either. I know they never gave it to their dad.

     Rachel left numerous messages on our answering machine. She left her number. No problem there. My husband rarely listens to the machine. 

This is not Rachel's letter.

     She sent my husband a letter. He muttered about it and mentioned he needed to meet with her so she’d leave him alone.

     I slept in this morning and finally wandered downstairs around 8:30, wrapped in my fuzzy fuchsia bathrobe, to find a strange woman standing alone at the kitchen island. 

     Rachel! 

     Her long, silky dark hair cascaded over the back of her white lab coat, and a stethoscope graced her slender neck. Startled, I stared speechlessly at her for several seconds.

This is not Rachel. This is a model pretending to be a nurse. Rachel is a real nurse.

     She answered my unasked question, “He’s in the bathroom getting me a urine specimen. I’m Rachel from the insurance company. I’ve already taken his blood.” She held up a test tube.

     My husband entered the room carrying a little cup. He handed it to Rachel and she placed it on my kitchen island. Eww. She carefully poured the contents into a test tube which she held over my kitchen island. Eww.

     “Do you want me to take your blood pressure while I’m here?” 

I certainly hope so.

     While Rachel positioned the cuff around Gene's arm, I remembered why I’d come downstairs and turned on the Keurig. Then I handed my husband a container of disinfectant wipes, thinking of the Clorox commercial, “Of all the things that happen on your kitchen counters…”

     I took my coffee upstairs, fairly certain I’d seen the last of Rachel.

     *Rachel is her real name. She has nothing to hide.

L is for Loser

One definition of “loser” at www.dictionary.com is “a person who has failed at a particular activity.” I am forced to embrace this title because of my epic failure in the kitchen this morning.

Me sharing coffee truth

If you know me even a little bit, you know I have a special relationship with coffee. Maybe it’s a passive aggressive relationship. I aggressively pursue coffee which just sits there passively. I honor coffee with my Pinterest board entitled “the Coffee Driven Life,” which is a collection of funny and witty sayings about coffee dependence, and unfortunately these sayings are more true than funny. 

If you, too, are caffeine-addicted, then you may also realize that the person least able to make coffee first thing in the morning is the person who needs it most. Without my favorite drug, I am not smart enough to make coffee that will make me smart enough to make coffee.

The Keurig is a as close to being a no-brainer as any coffee maker I’ve encountered, although I sometimes have difficulty with the fill-with-water part and the press-the-button part. But occasionally I bring out my little 4 cup Mr. Coffee for a special occasion, and this month’s special occasion is that my former student Caleb brought me Hungarian coffee. From Hungary. That may seem an obvious point, but I’m sure a person could get Hungarian coffee without traveling to Hungary. After all, one can buy Jamaican coffee at TJ Maxx. But Caleb did not buy the Hungarian coffee at TJ Maxx. Or in Jamaica. He bought it in Hungary and brought it home on a plane and delivered it to my house.

So I’ve been enjoying a little carafe of Hungarian coffee each morning, even though several thoughtful steps are required of my non-caffeinated brain. 1) Position the paper filter. 2) Peel the top off the container. 3) Measure the coffee and place it in the filter. 4) Pour the water into the water area. 5) Press the on button.

Most mornings I stand and watch the machine’s magic, or make toast, or pour cereal, but this morning I foolishly decided to do something useful. I’ve been working on getting rid of excess plastic containers and having a neatly organized container storage area. Part of this process includes leaving lids and containers on the counter by the toaster for several days while I invent reasons to deal with it later. But this morning I put some of them away, with my back to Mr. Coffee’s wonderful aroma and sizzling music.

Not my kitchen, but you get the idea.

When I concluded enough time had passed, I prepared to reward myself with my first cup. Where was the carafe? Not on the hot surface collecting the freshly brewed coffee. I neglected one thing: step 6) Place carafe under filter. While the gleaming, empty carafe sat off to the side, coffee flooded the counter top. 

The water is supposed to run
THROUGH the filter.

This coffee maker has a feature which prevents liquid from flowing through the filter if the carafe is not in place, but even Mr. Coffee has his limits. The water had heated and been pumped into the filter where it was trapped, mixed with the grounds, and overflowed. I grabbed a few kitchen towels, unplugged Mr. Coffee, and dragged the whole mess into the sink. 

No colorful language spewed from my mouth in the early morning solitude of my kitchen, because I am a writer. Instead I exclaimed, “I can write about this!” Then I made a cup of Gloria Jean’s Hazlenut coffee with a K cup, which came from Grove City, Pennsylvania, not Hungary.

Cindy's Keurig disaster looked
something like this.

A few hours later at the Well Coffee House, I told my story to Cindy, my friend and fellow writer, who is also a loser, it turns out. She had a similar experience when she lived in Maine, only she used a full size, 12 cup Mr. Coffee. All of the floors sloped in her old house, so when she entered the kitchen, a brown river ran through it. She also managed more recently to make a Keurig overflow coffee and grounds. Cindy, I salute you. 

 After Mr. Coffee cooled down, I rinsed him off, so he’ll probably electrocute me the next time I plug him in. If so, I’ll write about it.

Where does Jesus shop?

I never knew I wanted a Keurig coffeemaker. I’d played with one in the orthodontist’s office over the years, always treating myself to a free cup to compensate for the thousands of dollars invested beautifying the teeth of my four sons. But I was never willing to get a second mortgage to own a Keruig.

A quick Google search has prices ranging from $129.99 at Bed, Bath, and Beyond to $61.99 at…Tonerworld? I’m not sure I want to drink coffee associated with toner.

Then one day a few years ago my son Kevin procured a malfunctioning $5.00 Keurig from a thrift store and fixed it. I quickly became an addict of the high-priced, wasteful little K-cups, which I buy much cheaper, but just as wasteful, at the Surplus Outlet, which is blessedly close to my new job.

Anyone want to diagram that last sentence? No, me neither.

A few weeks ago, we thought Old K had brewed its last, but Young K whipped out his smart phone and ordered a replacement part, which arrived from Rhode Island by way of San Diego while we waited most impatiently.

This blog post is not really about coffeemakers, but when my pastor used a two-dollah-and-fitty-cent theological word at our Maundy Thursday service, I thought of my Keurig.

If you don’t like theology, skip these paragraphs.

The word is R-E-D-E-M-P-T-I-O-N, a noun, and the verb is “to redeem.” Dictionary.com offers these definitions for redeem:  1. to buy or pay off; clear by payment: to redeem a mortgage. 2. to buy back, as after a tax sale or a mortgage foreclosure. 3. to recover (something pledged or mortgaged) by payment or other satisfaction: to redeem a pawned watch.

Redemption happens to us humans; we are the pawned watches that need to be recovered. God is the one who buys us and the price he pays is the blood of Jesus.

To my surprise, the website included a long paragraph from Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary: 

There are many passages in the New Testament which represent Christ's sufferings under the idea of a ransom or price, and the result thereby secured is a purchase or redemption…The idea running through all these texts, however various their reference, is that of payment made for our redemption. The debt against us is not viewed as simply cancelled, but is fully paid.
(redemption. Dictionary.com. Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/redemption (accessed: April 05, 2015).

Okay, come back now.

Hoping to make my point less muddy than three day old coffee, I want to answer my own question, “Where does Jesus shop?” Where does he shop for followers, for converts, for disciples, for younger siblings to join his family?

He shops at thrift stores, secondhand stores, yard sales, and flea markets. He even picks through the garbage dump. He doesn’t go to Macy’s to look for perfectly functioning people in their original boxes, because there aren’t any anyway. He picks up rusty, crusty, broken people, pays for them with his own life and takes them home and fixes them up.

Jesus shops at the Salvation Army. Bask in the irony.

You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:19b – 20, NIV