Three Acts of Kindness

None of these happened within the last few weeks, but I did want to record them.

Just before the last big blizzard, I went out with a snow shovel and the ice chopper to level the driveway and demolish the plow ridge, so that the new snow would be all we had to worry about.  Our driveway is short but very wide, and there isn't much room on either side to pile snow.  The previously shovelled stuff was already above my head.  I had stopped to rest and was leaning on my shovel when a man came trudging along the alley, his arms full of objects from the Salvation Army thrift store on Nicollet.  I recognized a length of flowered cloth, but wasn't sure what anything else was.  I said hello to him, and he stopped.  "You trying to make room to get your car in, ma'am?" he said.  I wasn't sure if David would want to put his car on the driveway or leave it on the street, but that had been one of my reasons for shovelling.  So I answered in the affirmative.

"You shouldn't have to be doing that," he said, and heedlessly dumping his purchases in the snow on the side of the alley, he took the shovel from me.

He started out at a good pace, but the snow was hard and icy and stuck, and the plow ridge well packed in.  He was younger than I am, but not all that young.  He solved the problem of the high banks of snow by shoving the plow ridge into the alley and scattering it.  At some point he had cleared the half of the driveway I was still contemplating and gotten rid of two-thirds of the plow ridge, and was getting winded.  I told him he didn't have to do any more, that the car could drive in from the north and slide itself sideways onto the driveway with no trouble.

He gave me back the shovel and told me to have a blessed day.  I said that I had already  had one, thanks to him.  He said he was off to beautify his house, picked his stuff up from the snow, and went off followed by my fervent thanks.  The 10-minute rest he'd given me allowed me to remove the rest of the plow ridge before I went inside.

elisem had a sale a while ago.  I remarked in the comments that, should money fall from the air, I would surely buy a necklace called "Strategy and Tactics Among the Mermaids.  Here are some photos of it: http://lioness.net/L/nn/StrategyAndTacticsMermaids /.  A day later I got an email from Elise, saying that an anonymous benefactor had bought the necklace for me, but preferred to remain anonymous unless recipients were freaked out by the anonymity.  I figured that Elise was vouching for the benefactor, and the plural of "recipients" was also reassuring, so I didn't ask for any more information.  I love the necklace profoundly, and Elise got the money she needed for the reasons she had put up the sale.  I am even working on a short story inspired by the necklace, though there's no guarantee that, like most of my short stories, it won't stall out or turn into a novel.

And finally, a good friend loaned us money to help us over a severe cash-flow problem.

I am very, very grateful to all of these people.

Pamela