Monday Afternoon Thoughts on Materialism

Even though I've been on bedrest this long while, I'm still calling Monday my day off. I finish off the Sunday paper, watch all the videos online that I can't get on our rabbit-ears-and-digital-converter TV, and generally lounge about. I am not feeling guilty about this at all. An upside to all this is that I can't feel guilty about things I'm not really allowed to do, like heft the laundry downstairs.

So by way of that introduction, I have a little time to think about stuff. And think about 'Stuff.' For example, Jorge would really like a new TV that perhaps we wouldn't need rabbit ears for, and when we had the captions on, that wouldn't take up half the screen. I get that; our TV is smaller than my laptop screen, and only really works in the bedroom. And I did feel a little bit bad that we didn't have a TV for my folks to watch while they were here the past two weeks. But I'm also not sure where we'd put a 'normal' TV in our living room; it wasn't a consideration when we set up house, really...and perhaps on the upside, I taught my folks how to watch their favorite shows online as well.

At this point, Sophie doesn't have an obscene amount of toys. She has a cute 'sockmonkey' frog, a car mirror, a soft doll, a rattle, and some 'tummy time' mats. That sounds fine to me, given that she isn't even born yet, and especially in light of our rapidly shrinking apartment. However, I'm also aware that people like to buy toys for babies and she'll be arriving just before Christmas. We've already started looking for larger digs, hoping for a three-bedroom house with a yard...and yet, this one-bedroom apartment where we now live is the largest place we've ever lived as independent adults.

Last night, I looked at a Toys 'R' Us catalog, and it dawned on me that our Beloved Unborn would eventually have compulsive material desires of her own. And I didn't see anything I'd want to get for her when she was ready for serious toys. No, wait--I lied. There was one non-white, non-blond doll. That would be okay. Good Lord, though. How long can I hide toy catalogs and stores from her? Does she have to know that there are cartoon channels other than PBS (which doesn't have toy commercials), and how soon, really? And can I at least hope in a gender-stereotyped kind of way she won't automatically want violent toys?

We've been looking for a second car lately, either a minivan or something similar, that would be easy to get a baby seat or two in and out, and get to Iowa a couple times a year as well. Looking for a second car at all was a hard sell with me; after all, I walked a mile one-way to school last year in Hyde Park, and we now live one mile from church. But I think I'm learning urban distance and suburban distance are not the same; that, and there are no buses really to get Sophie to her Dr.'s visits. However, we'd probably just schedule routine visits on Tuesdays when Jorge was home and had the other car here as well. Actually, the real selling point was when the church told us the front of the church yard, which I'd have to cross with a stroller, would be heaped up and iced under by several feet, impenetrable by our maintenance folks' efforts, whenever the snowplows came by (church is near the city salt-yards). That would probably make it a little too dangerous to commute by foot.

Over the weekend we came across a nice jeep-looking-thing that was at a really great price, less than we paid for the Accord last summer. Only, we discovered upon inspection that this was a Lexus.

A Lexus? Can a mainline protestant pastor drive a Lexus with any credibility at all, no matter what the price? I had an uneasy feeling in my gut.

Since we were there, though, we decided to go for a test-drive. And it was a very, very smooth ride, and the seats were great, and the visibility for changing lanes was nice, and the back cargo door was easy to use and all...and it was dang cheap; but...it was a Lexus.

Can non-materialistic activist types such as ourselves drive a Lexus?

Funny thing is, if the same car was labeled as a Toyota (which I just learned is the manufacturer of Lexus), I'd not have any quandary at all. It was a great car. But after a while, it became easy to make more practical excuses: it doesn't have the LATCH system for installing infant seats. It could be expensive to insure and repair. It did have high miles on it, even if it did run smooth...

If any of y'all want it, I'll tell you how to get to the dealer. But for now, we're looking for something a little less conspicuous.

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I'm down to about one maternity shirt I can 'go outside' in. This is another benefit of being on house rest, that I don't need a lot of 'presentable' clothes. I can wear Jorge's sweats or my pj's the rest of the time. At least we're getting good use out of them. Sometimes I'm astounded at the number of clothes we do have, and would like to get around to weeding out a bit more. The recent church garage sale was a big help to us, in that we had a good outlet and motivation for getting rid of a few under-utilized things already. Meanwhile, Sophie probably matches us in number of clothes, although hers are much smaller and take up less room, and I understand that most of them will be in the laundry heap on any given day, at least until we get the hang of diapering and burping.

These are my thoughts then on a November Monday. They're not in any particular order. Now, if this bothers you, by way of an apology I might say I'm not writing much these days, since I'm even off sermon duty, and I think that's made me a bit equal parts 'wooden' and 'rusty.' If that's possible. I think part of the problem, is that we have other sources of income right now, and so I don't feel the pressure to write articles, especially in a market where I would have to work much harder to get them published and paid for. On the other hand, I'm reading far more now than I usually do, and that has not been bad. Maybe after a cycle of heavy reading, I'll be ready to get back out into semi-public life.

peace,

Le Anne