o-hey-O-hi-o

Tim Horton I don't know who you are, but you have saved my life. From the looks of it, you seem to be a wannabe Starbucks that has missed the mark and is closer to a DairyQueen instead. But I won't judge, because you have WIFI and I love you.

Tim Horton's has also earned my love and prolonged presence because it is air conditioned. My dad told me before we came up here that it was pretty much the norm for homes not to have air conditioning. Which initially sounded feasible to me; it’s the north, it’s colder up here. A lot of Europe goes without air conditioning, why not Ohio?

On Monday, when it was 95 degrees outside, I carefully (not wanting to offend anyone’s way of life) asked a coworker if it was accepted that air conditioning wasn’t necessary up here. I can’t repeat her response here because it was packed with expletives, but she essentially said “heck to the no…I do not have a desire to die of a heat stroke.” My dad, well-intentioned though he may be, is a liar.

So sweating has become part of my daily routine. As has watching the Reds play baseball and listening to Fox News yammer on about whatever it is that’s gotten Greta’s panties in a twist this time (is there a reason the woman refuses to fully open her mouth when she speaks??). Each day also includes working out at the Y (I’m the only member I’ve seen so far under 60, which really kills my self-esteem when they all outlast me on the treadmill) and, my new favorite thing, a twice a day run around the raspberry bushes in the backyard to gather the ripe ones before the birds get them. My days will soon be packed with pill-counting, but in lieu of a plethera of hours at the pharmacy this week, I've had to become creative with how to spend my time. Today that meant helping make sandwiches at the kids center for their daily free lunch. It was hilarious, mostly because the people I was working with were characters. One man asked me if I was Jeff's daughter. When I excitedly replied that I was, the man gave me a mostly toothless smile. It made me thankful Dad managed to escape here with his front teeth intact.

Another woman, Audrey, was hands down the most entertaining person over 80 I've ever met. She cracked me up the whole time we spent struggling to spread some difficult jelly over Kroger brand bread. When asked if she could help next week she declined but was sketchy as to say why. Later she pulled me aside to confess that she was heading with a large group of senior citizens to Atlantic City but was taking a bathing suit for the hotel pool so she could just telling people she was going on a "swimming trip".

The kids ranged from super polite, and classically curious (a twiggy bright blue eyed 7 yr old gently tugged on my shirt and whispered, "now just what is that thing on your leg??"), to down right hyper-active. One kid told me he didn't want the sandwich I handed him because he was on special medicine and it made him not hungry. I was tempted to tell the kid to share his behavioral meds with his brother, who, at the time, was busy lobbing the pear cups into the air to test the bursting capacity of the fruit cup containers. The kids were cute, but I had to agree when Audrey suggested this experience would make anyone want to go to school long enough to avoid working in a low-paid child care setting.

The church that got me plugged into the free lunch making is incredible. When we went on Sunday, I was prepared for a stiff sermon warped in formality and short on any real spiritual depth. How wonderfully wrong I was. Though a mostly elderly congregation, the church is bursting with an enthuasiam to bring the kingdom of God into our present realities right this moment through love and service. The sermon on "true fasting" from Isaiah 58 was instructive on how to not use fasting/service as self-glorification or "charity", but instead to empty ourselves of everything but God so we are properly equipped to love and care for our equal brothers and sisters around us. Having had a fire lit in me when I had finished Same Kind of Different As Me the night before, I almost lept outta my pew to sign up when the call came for volunteers. So many little things like that have given me the unique joy that comes as a conformation from the Holy Spirit that I'm where He wants me, as mundane as my location may seem. That joy and purpose makes it hard to sit still and I've written a novel here anyway so it's time to bid Tim H. adios...though you best believe my laptop and I will be back; your monopoly of the towns free WIFI makes that much inevitable.