This morning we got out the door in surprisingly good time to get the college duo to the campus by 9. I say surprisingly because Natalie has been sick for half the week, and wasn’t feeling any better this morning, but knew she had to show up for class anyway – missing comes with heavy consequences. So we got them dropped off, and then headed back to the neighborhood to fetch Ellie from her overnight.
Home again, Alyssa was already up and doing her chores – most admirable! Some of the kids hadn’t gotten at theirs until much later in the afternoon, so I must give kudos where they are due!
Once the kids were done with their classes, Paul went and got them, then he and I went on our Saturdate. That was punctuated with – I wont call it drama, but a certain amount of uneasiness. There was a lady in the restaurant who was clearly mentally unstable and homeless, wandering around the store asking people for money, and circling our table several times while muttering to herself before finally walking out. It is not uncommon in the Phoenix area to encounter the homeless and be asked for money, although most establishments try to prevent the solicitation of their customers. We spent a good deal of our conversation discussing the problem of homelessness in our communities, food instability, the SNAP benefits being cut off due to the government shutdown, and how these issues affect the work at St. Vincent de Paul. On a busy Tuesday night they usually have around 9-10 families needing assistance – last week it was 17.
Anyway, I digress, back to our day. I needed a rest when we got home, and I knew that Laurent, who was singing a morning mass and an afternoon wedding, wouldn’t be able to come over until around 4pm, so there was a nice little window for a nap.
When I got up it was time to start organizing. I got a vinyl tablecloth onto the outside table and we had all the pumpkins ready by the time Laurent arrived – with more knives, thankfully! From there the fun began, and it went surprisingly easily. Even Ruben did a great job with all the carving on his own pumpkin! Paul, Jacob, Efrain, and Natalie did not participate for various reasons, and there was one pumpkin that had already gone soft on the bottom, but with Laurent joining in we ended up carving 7 of the 9 available gourds, and I think they looked terrific!
After the carving party, I sat down to work on the photos, and then Laurent reminded me to choose some photos of our departed loved ones for tomorrow’s All Souls mass, so I found one of each and sent those to Walgreens to print. Then around 8:30 we left, drove to Ranch Market so the kids could pick up some soup for Natalie, then dropped them at home, then drove to the Walgreens, another 3 miles away, and since they didn’t have any tea lights, we headed for Wal-Market, which was thankfully on the way home, and only whilst driving there did I realize that the 39-mile range left in my gas tank that I had noted when I set out on my first drive this morning, had dwindled to absolutely nothing — just a blinking light. I sat in the parking lot at Wal-Market while Laurent and Ellie went inside, and tried to calculate the miles I had driven today to figure out if I could make it the two miles to the nearest QT. I decided if I had to stop by the side of the road, Jeff’s apartment was the closest, and he could come to our rescue.
The search for tea lights was successful, and off I drove with much trepidation. Halfway to the QT there was a detour due to construction, but it sent me in generally the right direction, so we continued on and turned into the QT in the nick of time and with much gratitude to the Lord.
Finally home again, it was quick work lighting up the Jack-O-Lanterns to see our handiwork in it’s best light. What a fabulous day!
