Mitzvahs
Last night we had a hot dinner at a nearby church. The kids and I walked to downtown Worthington and got lunch at Old Bag of Nails while I checked wifi. That’s how we’ve been doing things — one big, hearty meal at a restaurant and then snacks for breakfast and dinner. It mostly works, plus the kids are foraging off the smaller apple tree we have in back (the bigger apple tree has limbs too far out of reach and only drops the wormy apples). But yesterday when we got back from our downtown trip and were settling back into our home addition, (which is what we fondly call our front porch) we found a flyer stuck by our front door inviting us to a free spaghetti dinner at the church down the way.
You may not know that the Seventh Day Adventists have quite a nice little set-up near downtown Worthington. They have a school and a daycare and a big, beautiful brick church and a couple of other buildings besides. Worthington Foods, makers of fine meat-free sausage products (among other things) used to be here, too. (Seventh Day Adventists are vegetarians.) We used to drive by and Noah would sniff the air and sigh, “Oh they’re making chik nuggets today!” But then they got bought out by Kellogg’s and, sadly, they knocked the factory down.
Anyway! A free spaghetti dinner sounded like just the outing we needed last night. I called Kristen and Abby to let them know and they agreed to meet us.
I was reminded that mitzvahs go both ways. That it’s a mitzvah to give but also it can be a mitzvah to take, which is a lesson I seem to be learning at this stage of my life (I have a blog entry working on that later).
We walked in and Madison saw our next door neighbor among those serving and began to jump up and down. “It’s neighbor! It’s neighbor!” she said, then ran up for a hug. Our neighbor was just as happy to see her. And the rest of the volunteers looked happy to see our kids — all eight of ‘em — because kids, especially those who appreciatively load up on garlic bread and lemonade and shyly murmur their thanks, can make the person serving spaghetti feel even better.
We settled ourselves in for dinner, chatting with some of the volunteers who came by to welcome us and invite us up for more. Kristen got a little choked up because niceness can be so nice and make the inconveniences that got you there almost seem worth it. A guy came by and joked we’d have to sing for our supper, indicating the tiny empty stage at the front of the room and the little girls took him at his word, performing to (our) applause.
Madison was impressed with the church’s sanctuary, which was much more elegant than our temple’s modest 70s-inspired space. She was equally charmed by the bathrooms, which had gilt mirrors and busy flowered wallpaper. (She sat on the potty swinging her feet and singing, “FAHN-cy! FAHN-cy!” I think she wants to convert now. She’s all about the fancy!)
Then we took the kids to a nearby park and I accidentally forced Abby and Kristen to walk miles and miles to see Rush Creek. Oops.
We hear power will be back to us on Sunday but some of our neighbors have power already so we’re cautiously optimistic that it might be sooner.
Damn. I was so hoping that AmFam having power would mean you guys did too. Did you get my vm yesterday? Offer still stands.
I did get it and thank you!! I’m not so great at accepting help (this is why there’s a blog post upcoming) so instead I’m cobbling together stuff that doesn’t require, you know, help.
hey! if you were in my neighborhood you should have stopped by! if you need to do laundry or whatever, let me know. we have power, at least for now (my mom’s went out again yesterday, and she’s on your side of the street).
Take the offers of help! How many times to I have to tell you that.
I know of these things, because I take a lot of help.
[...] got my Obama yard sign. Our neighbor has a McCain one up (the same kind neighbor who hosted the spaghetti dinner at her church when everyone’s power was out) so I had to make things right in the universe [...]