Election time and Thanksgiving are two of the times my now passed on friend Warren Bone and I talked. Maybe it is the time of year or maybe I am just getting old and nostalgic, but I have been thinking about him a lot the last few weeks. This picture was taken on a sloop in a bay on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. I hope to see him again someday.
The plans for the house we hope to construct, God willing, came three weeks late, but very nicely the arrived the morning of my birthday. We love the plans. We are not going to do much celebrating today, but have plans for our Pad Thai cooking class on Friday, a big family blowout (not unlike those of Grandpa Milo) on Saturday with lots of meat (Cordero a la Griega, chuleton, Mexican hot dogs, etc.), and a visit to Aló Café early, maybe Sunday afternoon. We heard from both of the kids and lots of friends so it has been a very nice day so far!
I am very grateful to my brother because he reminded me and reminded me until I got the Living Trust, Last Wills and Testaments, Financial Powers of Attorney, and Medical Powers of Attorney completed, signed, and notarized before we head down to Mexico for a (relatively) short stint. It was just not that hard. We have the hard copy version of all these documents in a safe place along with soft copies for everyone involved. Our good friends, James and Janet Coker were kind to take the time to witness a bazillion signatures and their son, Brad’s, administrator notarized them for us. To top it off, it gave us an excuse to take James and Jan to Baked for lunch. It has been a busy, but amazing couple of days.
Lorena and I are thankful for our fathers. From our view, they had out-sized impacts on the world in which they lived as manifested by how much they are missed now that they are gone. They were flawed like anyone else, but we are especially grateful for their attitudes and understanding of Jesus Christ and our responsibility toward Him and Him alone. We believe those qualities of our fathers equipped us to handle the challenges and disappointments we have encountered of late in our own times and places in a way that does not allow the bad, even evil that plagues our world to rob us of our joy. Thank you Grandpa Lauro and Grandpa Milo.
Lorena and I flew to Oregon to get together with all my siblings to celebrate my older brother, Doug’s, 70th birthday. We met together at a resort at Depoe Bay, Oregon. I am very, very grateful for my siblings. They hosted me at the hotel and at my sister Julia’s house when we returned to Portland. We spent the whole time eating and talking about psychology and God. Of course, we are coming from different places on stuff, but are in agreement on more than that on which we disagree. Most of all, we talked and listened to each other in good will. We have decided to get together like this every year or two. I hope we can do the next one in our house Texas or Mexico.
This is the stream/drainage ditch that runs beside our house. It only fills up when we have a big rain storm. Those storms are semi-frequent events during parts of year in our part of Texas. We were excited about it because everything turns green and the bluebonnets start to bloom when there is rain in the spring. In thinking about this, I realize I have turned into my parents and grandparents. We watch weather, birds, the price of gas and steaks and, more than just about anything else, we cherish the times when we get to meet with people.
Lorena and I got to do that at lunch today. The elder of the church we used to attend came into our favorite restaurant in Granbury with his wife and a couple of other friends. We had a wonderful lunch and enjoyed just being together. I am not sure if I want life to get more exciting than that, but I DO want to spend more time with people of good will… And be one of those people of good will myself.
There are big culture and spiritual things going on in our lives right now–many of them to do with just getting older and the kids really “owning” their own lives, but also in terms of global and national events and changes in the community we have been a part of our whole lives. Some of my very best friends have died (Warren B. and Al R. in particular. I was feeling a little sad yesterday when I noticed this picture of Warren and I from the time I visited him when he worked in St. Thomas, V.I. I could be mistaken, but I think this picture was taken from above Trunk Bay in St. John. He was the best of friends. Al was that way, too. Whenever we had not seen each other for a long time, we would just start up where we left off. I had to hold nothing back from either of them and they would call me out when we disagreed, but they did it agreeably. They are both gone now, but I am grateful for the times I had with them. It is really good for me to remember people who loved Jesus and lifted me in my always too weak efforts to follow Him. Al and Warren were both that way.
Our insanely talented (and creative) friend Stacey knitted these two gnomes for our fireplace. They are PERFECT! We had no idea they would be so good. They had to be a ton of work and that they were hand-knitted by one of our favorite people in the world made them even better. They just showed up in the mail. Incredibly thoughtful.
I have gone through the exercise of making New Year’s resolutions quite a number of times, but if I ever accomplished any of them, it was not by my own volition with the resolutions in mind. This year, though, I am in a little bit of a unique place in that I (we, really–gratefully including all the friends and family that helped me) have finished something big that I have worked on assiduously for many years. With that complete, there is a little bit of an empty feeling.
As usual toward the end of each year, I called some of the buddies with whom I have worked and do not want to lose touch, but do not have regular contact. With one of them, Andrew B., among other things, we talk about what we are working on–usually big picture items like career and education. This phone call was no different and it really got me realizing that I have no big picture thing at which I am aiming (of course, except the spiritual/religious thing that is way at the forefront of everything I do). But more importantly, it reminded me that my life is always profoundly better if I have something on which to work that is longer term, contributes to society, allows me to work with friends, and that is not particularly easy.
I have been able to identify a few things that I think would be good to do that are in a much smaller category, but that do not really rise to the level of a big, hard, good thing. I am not going to be able to identify that, but am writing this post as a marker to start thinking hard about it. In lieu of that, here is a short list of smaller things that I hope will keep me fruitfully occupied until and if God is willing. Some of it is just aspirational, so writing it down might get me off center to do it.
I think I have enough to keep me occupied, but want to find something bigger, again, God willing.
We flew to Washington, D.C. the day after we returned from driving home from the graduation commencement in Nebraska. It was pretty helter-skelter for a bit, but now all of us are ensconced in Kelly’s beautiful and very festive apartment for Christmas. So far, we got to meet Kelly’s boyfriend, Adam for the first time (a very impressive and nice man) and held a party for several friends including Adam and his aunt and uncle who live here in D.C. Uncle Andy and I are running fans–watching not doing–and from the same era–he graduated high school in 1974, I in 1973–so we had a grand time talking about stuff only people from that era would understand. I really hope to see all of them again soon–maybe in Texas. Today, if we get out of bed in time, we are going out to lunch and then on to the Museum of the Bible. We plan to celebrate Christmas tomorrow evening because Lorena, Christian and I all fly out early Christmas morning.
We met Kelly’s boyfriend, Adam for the first time, last night at a little party in her apartment. We plan to be together again tonight along with Adam’s aunt and uncle. It was a pleasant evening and we were very impressed. He seems to be a very thoughtful person, both in the sense of kindness and in the sense of consideration of ideas and situations. We are very much looking forward to the evening tonight, too. In the meantime, I have found a great place to work with a beautiful street-level view of Washington, D.C. in its fall/winter glory.
Our buddy Ralph S. brought a watercolor he had painted with with him when he came to visit at Thanksgiving time. He put it into a nice frame, and presented it to us as a visiting gift. We loved it. It is the top painting in the image at the left. He painted another watercolor while we was here and left that with us, too. We liked it as much as the first one so Lorena found a nice frame and mounted it. We are now trying to decide where to put them in the house. It has dawned on us that we need to get him to do a piece for our Mexico house.
One of the nicest parts of our Thanksgiving celebration this year was putting up the Christmas tree. Then, several times during the weekend, all the “kids” sat around in the living room and made ornaments to hang on it. It all brought back great memories of my childhood and decorating the tree with Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah, and all the siblings. I hope we get to do this again next year with the same crew and maybe some additions.
With Thanksgiving and our first Sunday morning of even numbered months worship meeting that we host at our home behind us, we are in a week of calm before we start traveling, entertaining, and celebrating here in Texas for part of Christmas and New Year’s, in Washington, D.C. for part of Christmas, and at University of Nebraska–Lincoln for my graduation. That really good part of all this is that we get to spend most of it with Kelly and Christian. They are flying out to Lincoln for the graduation–Lorena and I will drive up before the graduation to pick them up at the Omaha airport. We have Honest Abe’s and one of the Omaha’s spectacular steak houses on the agenda along with the graduation celebrations. Then we head back to Texas before flying to Washington, D.C. for a few days for Christmas. When we return home, Lorena and I plan to go to Istanbul sometime before the New Year to try out a restaurant Ralph, Lorena, and I stopped at for a drink during Ralph’s visit for Thanksgiving.
This might have been the best Thanksgiving ever. At the very least it compares favorably to when we invited all my siblings and their families, my folks, our cousins, Tim and David Mecum, and Uncle Warren Bone to our place for several years when we lived in Albany. There were not as many people here, but we did have a dozen–way up from the last two or three years. Ralph and Olivia were a stellar addition to our crew which included Kelly, Christian, and Grandma Conchita, and Rigo and his family. After Thanksgiving we had a couple of days just with the kids. That was absolutely stellar. We are hoping everyone returns next year an more. We grew last years event which was nine people so we are going in the right direction. It was sad to see Kelly and Christian head to the airport just now, but we are scheduled to see them again in Omaha on December 14 and then again at Christmas time. We are working at reducing the time between when we see each other as much as possible.
Thanksgiving was phenomenal this year. The addition of Ralph and Olivia injected a ton of energy and we hope they can make it back again next year. They are leaving a little later today. Grandma Conchita went with Rigoberto and family to meet with Jorge in Houston where they will hang out with cousins for a day or two before they she returns to Monterrey with Jorge and his family and Rigo and clan head home to Austin. Only Kelly and Christian will be with us know for a few days more. It will be nice to have some time with them alone.
I got up at about six this morning to read my Bible, drink some coffee and enjoy the morning before all the bustle and noise associated with a Thanksgiving celebration for a dozen people gets started. I get to cook the turkey again this year, but it is a lot bigger one than I have ever cooked before–25 lbs. I think we (and when I say we, I mean I) probably made a mistake by getting one so big. We really did not need one that big and my gut feel is one that big might not be as tender as the 14-15 lb. turkey we usually get. Still, it is going to be fun. In addition to our own kids, Grandma Conchita, and our great Atlanta friends, Lorena’s brother, Rigo and his wife and three kids will be up for the evening, too. We have WAY too much food and there is really no way for most of them to take any of it along with them when they leave because they are either flying home or driving a long way to some place other than home. All that good food definitely is going to be a temptation. I have already put my weight-loss program on hiatus until everyone leaves.
The first wave of Thanksgiving visitors have arrived. Ralph, Olivia, Kelly, and Christian are here and we are having just a great time. The first event is to head out to a Mexican grocery store to stock up on cooking supplies.
It is a great joy to have Grandma Conchita with us for Thanksgiving this year. We can hardly believe that, after quite a few years of smaller gatherings, it appears we will have, God willing, a full dozen for Thanksgiving dinner. Lorena’s brother, Tio Rigo, and this family who are now living in the Austin area will be with us for the second year, but also Ralph and Olivia from Atlanta/Sweden will be with us. Ralph is an amazing cook, so we are hoping to co-opt him to create some of his specialties. Also, they are huge art buffs so we are hoping to take them to see the Kimbell and Sid Richardson Art Museums in Fort Worth. Both of them are spectacular. We also want to go to the Cowgirl Museum and there is much more, but we are not sure how much time there will be to do it all.
The CEO of the company where I work, Thrive Bioscience, often sends gift packages out for different holidays. They are amazing. We get authentic Vermont Maple Syrup and Harry and David’s pears from Southern Oregon often. I never want to take these for granted. They are great gifts and fun to share with others. The pairs arrived this morning, quite unexpectedly and we are grateful again!
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