Please Dispose of All Wrapping Thoughtfully

Brendon, bless his heart, has won my heart with Tim Tams. 

 Tim Tams, for those poor souls who have not experienced the joy of a Tim Tam, are cookies (or biscuits, depending on where you are from). They come in packages like this:

They look like this:

Tim Tams are delicious in and of themselves, but what makes these cookies extraordinary is the Tim Tam SLAM!  A Tim Tam Slam is the closest thing to feeling high you can get without actually huffing or injecting yourself.  But if they had a Tim Tam Slam drug in needle form, I might consider taking up the habit.

Direction to Making Your Own Addicting Tim Tam Slam 

1. Buy a package of Tim Tams. (America has only recently started selling them.  Look near the Pepperidge Farm section.)  They are not cheap, but they are worth it.

2. Make a glass of hot chocolate.

3.  Take a cookie and bite two opposing corners.

4.  Using the cookie as a straw, slurp some hot chocolate.

5.  PAY ATTENTION! The second your tongue feels liquid, take two or three more slurps and then shove the cookie in your mouth!  The hot chocolate melts the cookie from the inside out. If you slurp too long your cookie will dissinigrate and that is always tragic. Slamming is not something you should do if you are busy with a heated discussion or simultaneously keeping an eye on the broiler.  This requires all of your attention so you do not loose your cookie to the watery grave of hot chocolate.

6. Repeat steps 1-5 with additional cookies until you feel sick, are out of cookies, or feel too high to continue.

7. Drink the rest of your hot chocolate.

8. Clean up the evidence.

Brendon, that dear lad who won my heart with Tim Tams, left me with a package of said biscuit when he left the country for home in Australia.  Just the other day I finished that package.  Having had reached a state of utter euphoria, I completed step 7 and was about to do step 8 when I read the package.  On the underside there was this logo:

along with a plea in all-caps, so as to exude the most importance: "PLEASE DISPOSE OF ALL WRAPPING THOUGHTFULLY"

The logo along with a plea in all-caps so as to exude the most importance

PLEASE DISPOSE OF ALL WRAPPING THOUGHTFULLY

Thoughtfully. Thoughtfully.  THOUGHTfully. ThoughtFULLY.  Thoughtfully. Thoughtfully.

My last post was about showing our thanks by giving.  I've been thinking about all the things we can give: stuff, time, notes.  Perhaps one of the greatest things we can give someone is a place in our hearts and in our minds; to think of them, to thoughtfully let our memories and gratitude for shared experiences twirl around our daily doings.

"Remember the Lord thy God."  No matter what religion you practice, there is a fairly uniform belief that we cannot repay deity.  The most we can do is try to take on godlike attributes and to turn our hearts and minds to God.  After the gift of life and the atonement, how do you repay God?  You just always remember him. (For you Mormon kids out there, what is prayed each week with the sacrament?...that we may always remember him!)

I see people after death reaps the soul of a loved one.  It is difficult to grieve in such circumstances, but one way people cope is to acknowledge that you can still keep a loved one alive in your thoughts.  It is one thing when someone has died and no longer calls you on your birthday or fills the elevator with a soft scent of perfume.  It is an entirely different death when you no longer remember that deceased friend: when the smell of lavender no longer reminds you of grandma's bathroom, when you shred the memory of seeing a buddy's cold body in a casket, or when you stop writing a friend's birthday on the calendar. 

 Ceasing to be in thoughts, one ceases to be.

Today I made an effort to think of people whenever I threw a wrapper in the trash. I turned a mundane task into a deeply thoughtful form of reverence.  I thought of what a spitfire Grandma Walter was and how she so loved pretty things, her house full of porcelain figurines and tassels.  I pictured Grandpa Walter wiggling his ears while saying the alphabet backwards and us grand kids laughing while futilely trying to wiggle our own ears. I laughed about the dumb things I did in college with my incredible roommates like settle arguements with "nose goes" and handstand contests. When I threw away the post-it note that had long since lost its stick, I remembered high school and my favorite teacher calling for papers to be turned into the box. She would purposefully slow her pace while procrastinating students scribbled a last sentence or two and dove over desks to get it in on time.  

I remembered people both living and dead to keep them living.  At least living in me.

Last week my former roommate brought me frosted sugar cookies. It has been a while since I have seen her. I hate sugar cookies.  

But I don't care about the cookies!  She could have brought me a used toilet full of liver and onions and I would have been just as happy as if she had given me a cheesecake and a new car.  I don't care about what she gifts me!

... I care that she was thinking of me. 

Keep people alive by keeping them in your thoughts.  Let people know you're thinking of them.