As I'm writing this post, I'm eating this terrific, buttery, garlicy, white pizza from 2Fer's in Minooka. A friend suggested this venue to us as a place for Timothy to sing karaoke.
It took a couple of months, but we finally pooled our money and went once, in July, for my birthday celebration. The best part of a pizza joint for karaoke is that Daniel, who's only seventeen, could participate, and Rebekah, who's only eighteen, could finally hear Timothy sing "live" other than in a warehouse while cleaning it.
Currently, four enormous boxes of pizza are sitting on my stove in various stages of "eaten up."
So what's the big deal? We're feasting on pizza tonight because an angel brought it to us, an online angel I've never met.
Last year, when our water heater died a sudden death (right after the warranty expired; dontcha love how that happens?), this woman heard of our plight, found us a terrific deal on a new water heater, and sent a friend 'round our place after hours to install it.
Today, she and I were chatting, innocuously, I thought, when my cavalier attitude toward our various crises alerted her radar, and she began brainstorming options with me. These weren't anything I hadn't considered, but it's always good to give things another review, and her kindness truly warmed me.
So I figured we were just making conversation when she began asking me about my favorite pizza parlors...until she asked for my address and what my family liked to eat. I typed loud objections; she told me to breathe and not to worry about making dinner tonight.
Since it was already mid-afternoon, and I still had two more interviews and a meeting, plus I had to run (literally, long story) to the bank to exchange a money order and then drop off some paperwork at my attorney's office, and then work on three more projects tonight before I pronounce Monday as officially "over," (Did I mention I was particularly stressed since I'd missed my power walk this morning due to monsoon-type thunderstorms?), I decided to quit arguing and accept her generosity.
Now for a little "ha, ha."
I told Daniel to walk with me for a little mother-son bonding time, stressing the fact that I had fifty-five minutes to run to the bank and the attorney's office and to review a press release before my four o'clock interview. He obliged me with a good pace to both places and soon we were trotting back to the house.
As we neared the stoplight at our intersection, I opened my manilla envelope to hand him the money order along with the instructions of how to separate it and where to file each piece. Oh, horror of horrors! The money order was gone.
I literally stopped dead in my tracks in the middle of the sidewalk, threw up my hands, looked into the still overcast and threatening sky and shouted, "Who's side are you on?" Then I checked my phone: 3:40. I spun on my heel and ran back down the sidewalk, looking left and right as I did so.
I spied that lovely piece of paper about halfway back, patiently waiting for me on a thatch of grass. Daniel snatched it up and proclaimed himself keeper of the money order, which was fine by me. Then we ran all the way home. As the journey came to an end, Daniel, with sudden revelation, said, "Hey, you got your work out!"
Maybe God's on my side, after all.
