Things that Break

A few weeks ago, I was putting away clean dishes, including my small pyrex casserole dish. Ray and Linda gave us a set of several pyrex dishes when we got married 20 years ago. I loved them and I used them all the time. When I put the smaller dish into the larger, the larger one shattered like a car windshield that had been hit with a brick. It just fell apart into a million pieces on the shelf. It was startling, sudden and a bit sad. A few pieces spit out of the cabinet onto the floor, but most of them just flattened. There was no fixing it. The fixer in me was flummoxed. All I could do was reach into the dark cabinet with a small whisk broom and sweep the bits and pieces into a dust pan and throw it away, then go out and get a new one.
Just a couple of days later, I heard from my brother that he and his wife are getting a divorce. It is amicable and both are in agreement that they just don't love each other anymore. This shattering of a marriage is less sudden, but no less startling or sad. They will hopefully be happier as individuals, but certainly any divorce has ripple effects that no one can predict. There must always be some ambivalence at the breaking of a life lived together, even for a short time. Some things just cannot be put back together, no matter how hard you may want to try. Some things are not your business to even try to fix, no matter how much you may want to. With my brother and his wife, all I can do is pray and help with practical things when asked. The fixer in me is flummoxed again. I can't do it, no one can, and that is the saddest part of all.

Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

I was just sitting thinking about that phrase. The idea of having something and eating it, but still having it. The thought that you could eat or use something without sacrificing it. I was thinking about it not so much in the philosophical sense as is the actual physical, eating, sense. I was actually wishing for a never ending chocolate chip cookie, or maybe a never ending pizza slice. Did you ever wish for something like that? Something you could eat, that would maybe change into another thing you could eat, without having to get up and get it, would never make you feel full and gross, never make you fat? The penultimate lazy man's foodstuff? I get like this sometimes when I am craving something, but not really hungry. I don't even know what it is I'm craving, because when I actually start mentally listing things I could eat, I don't want them: crackers? nope, candy? nope, cheese, chips, chili, chimichangas? nope, nope, nope, nope! Somebody help me! What is this mysterious food I am craving? Will I have to settle for "eating around a craving" for the next few days until I discover what it is I actually want? Like Templeton, the rat at the fair, eating a bit of everything? The thought of it makes me a little bit sick...and full.