Sugar and spice

"God wanted you to take it easy. He really did. Especially on the Sabbath. You've been working too hard." I told a girlfriend after she had a kitchen knife fly at her accidentally while putting it away last weekend.

I seem to feel God's messages loud and clear. He was putting me through hell this past week too, with my kids, and to top it all off, the trunk of the car didn't stay open and slammed on my head Thursday night while I was taking groceries out. I sat with an ice pack on it for half the night, while it throbbed for the rest of the night.

Then on Friday, I woke up and the world looked kind of different. I walked into the bakery getting their freshly baked challah bread, some cake for the Sabbath, some cookies for the Sabbath, some frozen quiche for the week and the young man behind the counter says to me "Here, just take what you want as a gift" pointing to the shelf of home-made, different-types-of-cookies. I opted for the healthiest batch, granola cookies, even though I KNOW they are laden with sugar. But if God is helping me NOT to be macrobiotic, then so be it. With the week that was, perhaps a little soothing, sugar will do me some good.

Later that morning, I took Ex-Criminal out of her hostel for breakfast. She wanted me to meet her new boyfriend, who looked Arabic but who actually was of Moroccan-Jewish extraction. He seemed miles better than the other idiot she dated for over a year. This one worships her. That's the way I like it with my daughters. She seemed fine today and I finally had gotten the "story" of what happened from another social worker. She didn't have a breakdown but was being disruptive during a group session. And she wouldn't listen when everyone (even the other girls) told her to stop disturbing the session. At the Hostel she has to be ready to listen verbally. If she continues not to listen to the rules, they can't move her physically to her room because at the Hostel, the girls have "graduated" so that they are not physically removed to their rooms, when they have to be disciplined, they'll simply go when ordered to. So they moved her to the place she was at before "to think it out". Much better story.

The two didn't order anything beyond coffee, which was fine by me. You don't want to take advantage of your parents' generosity, I'm ok with that. We had a wonderfully healthy delicious breakfast of eggs, colorful salad, non-caffeine coffee, fresh carrot and grapefruit juice, tapas of Jerusalem artichoke and labane. At the end of our breakfast the waitress said she had a surprise for us. I love surprises. She came over with two decadent pastries - a chocolate mousse thing and a hot fudge cake with ice cream. Mmmmmmm. Just what my macriobiotic doctor ordered for me. Seems like God is trying to ply me with sugar today, isn't He? Gifts are gifts. I ate half the hot fudge thing, and packed the rest up. As if those freebies weren't enough, she also gave us a chocolate plum cake beautifully packaged. All free.

Those sugary gifts I got throughout the day were so strange indeed. I'm sure it was to sweeten up the week that had gone sour.