Today I got this little plastic rolling tool in the mail.

You could probably find the same thing in a cooking store if you were looking to make designs on a pie crust, even a better version of it, in a nice package, for way more than I spent on my peachy little crawfish-looking tool.

But I got mine in a round-about way, not being one who visits cooking shops;  I got mine from a tip by Cat Kerr at Joggles who uses one just like this to make various lines atop her paintings.  And ultimately, I got it from Amazon who got it from China and I paid $2.64 for it including postage.

(Where else would a person get a cutting tool that makes six different patterns for $2.64?  And who can imagine someone needing the dollar profit she probably gets by advertising, packaging, then going to the post office in her city and mailing it to America?)

It came in a padded envelope.  On the address label was the name and value of the product in English and Chinese: Cutting roller, $2.64.  Here's the return address:

Bao'an District of 
City Fuyong Qiaotang red hair industrial city


Of course, everything we buy from the thriving Dollar Tree is imported from China, but to get a single tiny tool from China, addressed to me, was quite another thing, kind of like having a pen pal who sends me presents.

Here's China:

And here's Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean....

Last week, I received a package from Lithuania--a beautifully wrapped box of cardboard pieces for Elena and me to make a village of houses for Christmas.  The shapes are die-cut so well that the windows and doors fall right out when pressed just a little bit.

The package was impeccably wrapped, very neat and tight and sturdy.  The assembly instructions are printed in English. The return address:

Modesta Svidras
Baltijos pr. 109-17
Klaipeda LT-93225

Klaipeda, as you can see, is also a coastal city,  in Northwest Lithuania. I picture a woman named Modesta designing cardboard houses , then cutting them in an industrial die-cutting machine (maybe her family business uses die cuts and she borrows their equipment for her hobby of making paper villages?).

I would like to know more about Modesta Svidras and her life in Lithuania.  I think I'll write her a letter after I get these gel printed and assembled--which is why  I'm saving her address. Maybe she'd like to know one of her faraway customers.

My vintage  typewriter was shipped (via eBay) from Spain. The owner of the company coached me through some initial issues by texts.  His English is spotty, my Spanish is nil, but we managed to chat about typewriters and life .

In all three cases, the wrapping techniques are far superior to ours.  Every tiny part is wrapped securely and the boxes are exactly the right size for a tight and economical fit. My typewriter was so well packed that it literally took me  half an hour to get through all the padding and see a flash of turquoise.

Encounters with people from other countries enlarges my sense of geography and my appreciation of (and curiosity about)  different cultures.

The woman who sometimes cuts my hair is Persian.  She misses her mother terribly--they were hair styling partners in Iran.

The owners of Sky Nails are from China, a couple with two beautiful little girls, the wife being the "extra daughter" of a family who was supposed to have only one child.

Kasia Avery, who started and teaches Wanderlust classes, is from Poland--though lives in England with her British husband.

Online classes have introduced me to people from various places, mostly in Australia, England and  the United States, also a few from Poland and France.

Reyes, who works so expertly on my house and yard,  is from Mexico.

I'm lucky to have met and "met" people who are so kind, generous, and smart in what they do.

While the leaders of countries have political and economic beefs with each other, the people, the citizens, can almost always find common ground. We trade ideas, music, food, art, and material products. We're not so different.  We all love our families.  We all laugh and cry.  We all find passions that enrich our lives.

I'm  embarrassed at the moment to have a personally and nationally narcissistic president who touts the U.S. as "Number One." I always want to apologize to international strangers and friends who read hateful tweets and hear speeches by a man who denounces them.

From space, as an astronaut pointed out, there are no national borders, only one connected planet.  The outrage and protests of students all over the world yesterday--on climate change--was a reminder of what Martin Luther King said: "What affects one directly affects all indirectly."  Friendship with people all over the globe has always been good; now, it's imperative if our planet is to survive.

We may speak different languages and have different cultural ways of being, but we are all one humanity, connected by millions of invisible threads.