The sun is shining in Centralia. The pure steam coming from the coal fired generation plant on the left side of this image and one cloud above Mt. Rainier is all that is in the vast expanse of sky behind the house. We are very thankful to be here in Centralia right now. We love our house, I love my work, there is a path toward retirement that might be a little rocky, but God is in control of all that–I have a lot of faith that I will get what I need and it might not be the easy path that is what I want, but it will be better to be out of my hands and in the hands of God than planning my own path.
One thing that has become evident over the last months (maybe years) on which I need to operate, is that it is not good, not scriptural even, to engage with people of bad faith or bad will. The good news is that there are a lot of people of good will and good faith–not perfect by any stretch, but of good will and good faith. So, after doing an inventory of the things in which I am currently involved, I have decided I will work on one and possible two of five projects. All of them are worthy projects, but the people involved in the one or two are people in whom I have confidence. The other three or four, not so much. Life is too short and I do not have so many years left to invest in projects with people of dubious motivation. It is not that I am such a great prize myself, but I want to be.
Our Thanksgiving this year came together very nicely even though our Thanksgiving was wildly disorganized and we did not even expect to be here before it all started. We are very grateful to our guests (Jack N., Dan T. Warren B., Aaron L., and Charlotte D., not to mention Kelly and Christian) because they all fit in nicely to a fairly chaotic but enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend. Most of us were able to attend a special, Spanish language church service on Friday which very much put the right kind of emphasis on the whole affair.
Thanksgiving was great this year. We were not sure we were even going to be in town together, but it all got pulled together at the last minute. Kelly came mid-morning, a few guests arrived a little later. A few more arrived after that. One arrived even after dinner to spend the night. It was small impromptu and wonderful. Of course we ate too much. Kelly started it off with a cheese board and lox, crackers and cream cheese. Aaron L. made and brought a butter nut squash pie with coconut milk whipped topping (stunningly good). I cooked the (smallish) turkey and overruled Mom when she told me I needed to leave it in the oven for another 30-60 minutes–it was the best turkey we ever had. We set the table for eight and ate and ate and ate. Cannot wait until next year.
Lorena is visiting Christian right now as he prepares for his comprehensive exams for his PhD two weeks from now. We always get some kind of a surprise when we go to visit him. This visit was no different. Christian’s friend, Beau, got him a leather strap and canvas book bag. Christian loved it. He wanted to make sure his books stayed dry so he treated the canvas with beeswax. Now, beside being very cool looking, it is now very functional. Lorena says he uses it all the time. He also started a collection of some other stuff I will write about tomorrow.
Yesterday was my 63rd birthday. It is a strange and interesting time in life and the world. The New Year whether counted from one’s birthday, January 1, or some other important annual even like the start of school or a church convention is a time for reflection. For some reason, this year more than many in the past, I feel a need to reassess what we (Lorena and I) do. We have a few short term goals we want to accomplish like Lorena’s degree and some remodel projects, but in the whole scheme of things, they are not so consequential.
Christian had been in Washington for a little over a week and flew home yesterday on his birthday. It is getting harder and harder to find cool stuff for gifts, but cool new sunglasses are always appropriate no matter how many you already have and especially if you live in Tempe, Arizona.
We are really grateful our friends Al and Michele Rizos came to spend the weekend with us. They were a huge help at our weekend party and we had a chance to catch up a little after everyone else left. We absolutely need to plan to do this kind of thing way more frequently. We ate entirely too much really good food which seems to be a fixed feature of every time we get together and we solved all the problems of the world (in our minds). Not saying it is an echo chamber, but, well, it kind of is. It is a good kind of echo chamber though.
We had quite a nice party of mostly twenty-somethings over the weekend. The shoes and purses were piled up much higher than this at the peak of the party. We cooked hamburgers and hot dogs with very spicy guacamole on Sunday evening and and then quiche with Lorena’s special, extra spicy salsa on Monday morning. I do not think people got a whole lot of sleep, but the “kids” all seemed to have a nice time. We inaugurated or new fire pit and made gallons and gallons of coffee. We were thankful to have an extremely nice Canadian contingent (maybe that statement is a little bit redundant) and a strong showing from the very polished California young urban professional crowd. We are looking forward to doing it again next year.
I am on the plane flying to PDX from Boston. Lorena worked frantically for the last week getting the house ready for an influx of twenty-somethings. Fortunately we have a couple of friends to help us as the hired servants. Actually, we look forward to it all and are looking forward to meeting a few new young people and to hang out and talk about life with old (in both the “we have known them for a long time” and the “they are getting past middle age” senses) friends.
Our dear friends from Chula Vista to spend one night in Centralia with Lorena. I wish I could have been there, but they will be back in a few days to stay one or two more nights. They are family and we hope this becomes a habit.
Kelly and Christian are getting ready for a celebration of sorts. The party games have started to arrive. They are not horseshoes, but similar and we already have an amazing croquet set we got for our wedding and has been used for only seminal events like this one. Lorena and I are pretty much the hired servants, but our buddies Al and Michele will be here to suffer with us, so it is all good.
Lorena, Kelly, and I went to a church convention yesterday. She got asked to translate from English to Spanish for one of the meetings. It was a two hour long meeting, so she asked me if I would be willing to translate for the last speaker. I had actually not done it for awhile, but said yes and had a ball. I forgot how fun it is to translate. The funny deal is that I seem to focus on what is being said better when I translate, too. I hope I get to do it again soon.
Christian flew in from Tempe on Monday night, then took Amtrak down from Seattle to Centralia with Kelly after she got off work on Tuesday. It will be a whirlwind trip because they have a friend flying into Seattle on Friday to hang out with them. Our time together has been very relaxed time with them and, as usually, has centered on cooking, food, conversation, reading, and music, not necessarily in that order. Exercise has been on hold for a couple of days which affects all of them, but (shame) me because they all work out at least five days a week while I give lip service to working out five days a week. Is there such a thing as a Fourth of July resolution?
Yesterday, Lorena and Kelly picked 15 pounds of blueberries while I worked on some stuff for my new job and Christian worked on his dissertation research and comprehensives preparation. We spent a lot of time doing similar things growing up so it was very nice and relaxed. As for the blueberries, my understanding is that there will be pie sometime before they get back on the train to head back to Seattle later tonight.
By complete accident, I have been in Mexico for at least part of this and the two previous World Cup’s. I am not that much of a soccer fan, but this is definitely and iconic event. Today, because of my delicate skin, I sat in the lobby next to the Starbucks, drank coffee and sparkling water and watch Argentina squeak past Nigeria (Argentina does not deserve to be where they are) and France play to a 0-0 tie with Denmark (what do you expect from France). Tomorrow morning it should be pretty fun here with Mexico playing Sweden. Definitely not a fan of Sweden and have great hopes for Mexico. Not knowing anything about soccer I just go by my most recent feelings about the countries playing and the people watching to help me to decide for whom to root. It is also kind of fun to be the foil for all who wish to pontificate about the intricacies of the game in general and this World Cup series in particular–EVERYONE here, including the little kids, knows more than me about this stuff. It is all professional wrestling to me (especially Argentina).
We are home from our trip to Casa Grande, AZ and Burnaby, B.C. We are grateful for our friend, Bonnie’s, help with Kiwi the surviving, twin cat sister. It was a trip for which to be thankful. We had the family all together for a few days, we spent some quality time with our friends, the Rizos, we got some new spiritual insights, we got new Pixel 2 XL cell phones, and when we got home, our new phone cases were waiting for us in the mailbox. Fortunately, neither of us dropped our phones hard enough to make them break (an unusual source of satisfaction) before we got them into the protective cases. Even more cool, the cases have the piece of metal in them that allows them to mount on the windshield fixture we have in our car. We are a little worn out, but plan to hit the hay early tonight and reengage at the salt mines in the morning.
Lorena and I drove up to Lacey this morning to have breakfast with our dear, life-long friends, Brent and Susie this morning. It reminded us we are not doing nearly as much of that as we should. Had a breakfast that broke the diet pretty badly, but talked about life old times, and trials with our kids. We are so glad to have them close by. Susie came to our wedding in Mexico 25 years ago, but we have been close friends for a lot longer than that. We have common connections in Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon (of course), and many other places around the country.
Lorena sent me this photo today. It is the same grill we had when we lived in Albany. Well, I am sure it has some revisions and upgrades. We loved that grill. We got one in North Carolina that was nice, but we did not like it nearly as much. This is kind of a big deal for us. We (and I am using the royal “we” in this case because I am really talking about just Lorena) LOVE to cook on the grill–even in the dead of winter when it is snowing. This is the grill that has five burners–four main burners and a side burner she used mostly to cook corn on the cob while grilling carne asada.
Spent a great weekend with our friends Luis, Susan, Tom, Stacey, and a bunch of kids (using the term loosely) in Gearhart. After meeting we all went to eat in Astoria where this picture was taken. It is an amazing thing. We studied Astoria frequently in school (the oldest town in Oregon) and I even played sports against them in high school, but I had never really been there during the day. It is very, very beautiful with lots of quaint little shops and restaurants. It is less than a two hour drive from our house and we hope to go explore there some more during the summer.
Kelly and her roommate Shani are taking their mothers to dinner and a musical tonight. Mama Mia. Should be memorable.