{"id":29763,"date":"2020-04-05T00:01:11","date_gmt":"2020-04-05T07:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=29763"},"modified":"2020-04-05T00:01:11","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T07:01:11","slug":"food-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/food-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Write About the Small Stuff — Like the Kettle Corn That Showed Up in Our Food Order. Sheltering in Place Week 4"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"kettle-corn<\/a>
Surprises keep showing up in the on-line food order that we pick up at a neighborhood store, starting with this — to me disappointing — bag of kettle corn. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sheltering at Home Week 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

The coronavirus pandemic is sending foods across our threshold that we’ve never had on our grocery list in all the years we’ve lived here.<\/p>\n

Kettle corn is one of them. It showed up in a recent on-line order when we picked it up at a neighborhood grocery store.<\/p>\n

Tiny apples that can be downed in four bites are another. This food order mishap was a welcome surprise. We hadn’t noticed that apple growers and marketers had come up with such an easy-to-eat fruit, or we’d have been shopping for it all along.<\/p>\n

The weirdest surprise: When we ordered non-alcoholic beer, what we got was a bizarre, calorie-free beverage called Hoppy Refresher from Lagunitas Brewing Company up in Petaluma.<\/p>\n

\"Lagunitas-hoppy-found<\/a>
Hoppy Refresher, an alcohol-free beverage from Lagunitas Brewing Company. It tastes mildly like beer and flowers. Do I drink it at a virtual cocktail party? Or to rehydrate after video Zumba? Either way, I think I like it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hoppy has no calories, no alcohol and very little color. But it is carbonated. Which makes it a pop in my Midwestern lexicon of beverages. Hoppy pop?<\/p>\n

But Think of the Homeless, Mom<\/strong><\/h5>\n

When I mentioned our kettle corn disappointment to son Peter, he wanted to remind me that there were homeless people all over the country — the world —\u00a0 who’d be glad to have the bag of kettle corn that showed up in our food order. Think about it, Mom.<\/p>\n

I do think about it. I think about how the coronavirus is about to rip through senior living homes, prisons, refugee camps and homeless encampments. That makes me fearful and sad. Which makes me feel powerless. Which makes me mad, really mad. I write a rant about the<\/a>\u00a0incompetent Donald Trump and post it here.<\/p>\n

My post changes nothing.<\/p>\n

I lose hope.<\/p>\n

I need some hope. But where to find it?<\/p>\n

Well, in the laugh Jon and I share when we find the bag of ready-popped kettle corn in our latest bag of groceries. Kettle corn? We had ordered a jar of good old fashioned Jolly Time or Orville Redenbacher popping corn. The kind you pour into a pan of hot oil and makes a tinkling sound as the kernels hit the bottom of the pan. A sound that takes me back to my girlhood, when my mother popped up bowls of popcorn on Monday nights to eat as we watched “I Love Lucy.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0Thank Those Time-Consuming On-Line Shopping Sessions<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I’d rather laugh about the quirky bag of groceries that land in the trunk of our car after another of Jon’s time-consuming on-line shopping sessions. I’d rather think about that than about the deep disasters looming near and far:<\/p>\n

\"small-applies<\/a>
These small apples, eaten in a few bites, showed up in our food order.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The homeless person on his concrete bed under a freeway overpass, coughing.<\/p>\n

The men and women in jails and prisons, sitting elbow to elbow in crowded dining rooms, unable to observe social distancing.<\/p>\n

Families with small children crammed into refugee camps in Kenya, Jordan, Pakistan.<\/p>\n

The resident of New York City spiking a 103-degree fever and wondering whether she’ll get a respirator.<\/p>\n

I can’t do anything about the big things. I can’t even help with the small things — like babysit my grandchildren in faraway Minnesota so that their parents can get a break.<\/p>\n

All I can do is help my readers with the very small things. Like how to find the humor, the pleasure, the companionship, the good moments in this strange life we are leading right now. That’s all I know how to do.<\/p>\n

And maybe that’s something we are all called to do for the time being — find ways to keep our mental and social health intact, so that when the moment comes to put our lives and our country and the world back together, we’ll be ready.<\/p>\n

If you liked this story, you can sign up to be notified<\/a> of new posts.<\/em><\/p>\n

Looking for hope? Meet Geoff Machin at “We Go Looking for God, When We Could Be Having a Beer.”<\/a>\u00a0 More about microbes at “How the Mother of Preschool Kids Outsmarts the Mighty Microbe.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"kettle-corn\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A bag of kettle corn? How did that get into our on-line food order? Provisioning mishaps have provided comic relief to the coronavirus anxiety at our house. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,41],"tags":[2233,2179,2234,2235,2236,2237,2238,2239,2240,2241,2242,2184],"class_list":["post-29763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-sheltering-at-home-chronicles","tag-beer","tag-coronavirus","tag-food-order","tag-grocery-store","tag-hardships","tag-homeless","tag-hops","tag-kettle-corn","tag-lagunitas","tag-on-line-shopping","tag-refugees","tag-sheltering-at-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}