Most of the last two weeks have been spent with one or the other of us (my husband or myself, that is) recovering from the awful-awfuls.  I came down with it first two Fridays ago.  Congested head and general nastiness.  I worked (sorta) despite the congested head and general nastiness.  You can fake it like that when you work from home. 

That Saturday we had VERY EXPENSIVE tickets for Cirque du Soleil.  Was I kind to my fellow man and stay home?  I DID NOT.  Not at what I paid for those tickets.  I stuffed my purse with kleenex and ventured out, trying to keep my face covered at intervals as I launched squadrons of sneezes.  We drank martinis, ate shrimp from a spoon and other goodies.  Even VERY EXPENSIVE tickets cannot save you from a long line for the toilets during intermission.  It's seems as though most men are camels, as there were many more women in line than men.  The men all went into the food tent and presently sallied back out with desserts for the women still waiting to use the facilities - which the women in turn refused to relieve them of until after they had relieved their bladders.

Sunday and even Monday were spent recovering.  I did not even try to fake working from home on Monday.  Monday was also the day that Mom S. (Bill's mom) went into the hospital.  Her companion called in the morning to say that Mom S. was experiencing difficulty breathing.  I told her to go ahead and call 911 and they checked Mom S in for a couple of days to get a light case of pneumonia and nasty bladder infection under control.

Tuesday I returned to work, but Bill started not feeling too well.  He went to work on Wednesday and came back with a fever of 102 f.  He stayed home on Thursday and when his fever was once again 102 Thursday afternoon, I got him a doctor's appointment for Friday morning.  I love Dr. Barth.  He reportedly looked at Bill and asked, "You just recently returned from Africa, didn't you?"  Bill allowed as how he had.  Dr. Barth reviewed his symptoms with him.  "Well, you got me all excited.  It's been a long time since a treated a clinical case of malaria, but it looks like you don't have it."  But apparently the malarone that Bill had been taking to prevent malaria can leave you susceptible to other nastiness.

It took the rest of the weekend for Bill to get his fever under control, but he returned to work on Monday.  Oh, and Mom S. went home from the hospital on Thursday afternoon....and kept calling all weekend to make sure that Bill and been to the doctor and was being properly treated.

And now it's time to turn on "Carrier".  If I have one complaint about this week it is that there is too much good TV on and the tivo is getting filled up....between "Carrier" and the newest season of "Deadliest Catch" and can't keep caught up!

..of my daughter.  She called a bit ago, and not only will she be part of the Orientation Crew next fall, but she has been accepted onto the CEC (Campus Events Committee?) as the Business Manager for next year.  A paying position no less, although it is a fairly minimal stipend. 

She also has a couple of possibilities for interesting summer jobs:  in the business office of a regional theater or possibly in the Events department at the Science Museum in Boston.  If she doesn't get either of those she will look for something a little more prosaic in the Greater Gloucester area.

AND she got a 76 in her Business Stats test.  Only 4 points below what she was hoping for and MUCH better than she got on her last test.  Business Stats and Abbie are NOT a match made in heaven.

And most important, she is proud of herself for stepping up and applying for O Crew and CEC.  She has been doing so much growing.  She allowed as last year at this time, or even six months ago she would not have even bothered applying because she "would never get the position."  Now, not only has she applied, she has gotten the positions!

Just got back from picking Bill up at the airport.  Dropped him off at work, so he can put in a little "face time".  I will head back to Pawling to pick him up later this afternoon.

Left home at 5:30 a.m. to be sure that I would make it through rush "hour" traffic and be there before the plane landed.  So, of course, the plane was an hour late.

It's good to have him back "home".  Hopefully the cats, who have been relentless with only one human in the house for the past two weeks, will give me a break now.  It's distracting trying to cook when a cat consistently insists on sitting on your shoulders when ever you are in front of the sink or the stove! 

Had a crazy week at work.  Half my team members were out, due to a combination of wanting to spend time with family during school break and taking care of sick family members.  Among the missing-in-action were my manager and HIS manager.  So of course Monday night's batch run had issues which let us know that the database has some corrupted records in it and I spent the rest of the week working with the vendor on resolving the issue.  It is still not completely resolved (in fact I spent some time this afternoon running another diagnostic test), but at least what I considered to be the worst of the issues, was resolved on Thursday.

In mid-week Bill sent and email with a PDF with lots of pictures, which was really neat to get.  But while the text from the PDF will copy into Livejournal, the pictures are missing in action, or I would post them here.  Maybe I will learn how to do that someday.

On Friday afternoon Abbie and Alex came home for the weekend and it was enjoyable.  She opened her birthday gift from her Dad (a WII) and then we went out to an all-you-can eat buffet for dinner.  She and Alex spent most of the evening playing with the WII.  I went to bed.

Saturday we did a little shopping for "interview" clothes for Abbie.  We came back home and I cooked an early dinner before we left for Hartford to see Cirque du Soleil's Kooza.  It was an excellent show, although the school group that arrived late and couldn't get their seats figured out (we were sitting on the end of the row and had to keep getting up to let folks pass us - during the show) were more than annoying.

Church this morning.  Two services for me as I had to talk about Faith Alive during the "Mission Minute".  Excellent sermon.  Fortunately I didn't have to stay for the third service.  The "Mission Minute" was preempted by a baptism.  Cooked roast chicken dinner which we all enjoyed before the kids took off for school around 2:00 pm.  Abbie called me a little while ago letting me know that they made it back safely...and that she was feeling homesick.  Mostly, she thinks, because of the stress of everything she is trying to arrange for the summer and next year on top of her class work.  Poor kid.  I do miss her.

Have also heard from Bill several times since the kids left .  He was using Skype to call me from Dubai.  He even called me from the plane while he was waiting for it to take off:  apparently they had wide-band available on the plane while everyone was boarding.  Insane.

Tomorrow morning I will meet him at JFK airport.  Looking forward to it.

Okay. It's not polite to refer to your husband as a horse. In any case, Bill spent some time yesterday composing and sending out an email to all interested parties:

( Bill's Letter... )
I spoke to Bill, briefly today. The Loring's survived Precision Air to make it to Dar in plenty of time for their flights home. They should be well on the first leg to London as I type.

Bill did speak for a short time at the clergy conference today. He spoke on servant leadership, using Niamiah (his favorite Old Testament book) and several other items for his texts. Then he led them in some worship and they loved that so much that he will be doing that every evening for the rest of the week. The challenge is translating English praise songs into Swahili. It seems that just about every Swahili word has three syllables for each syllable in it's English counterpart.

Twenty-two years ago today, at about this time of day, Bill and Abbie and I all gathered in a room together for the very first time.  I guess that technically she had also been with us for the previous nine months, but it was Abbie's first day as a separate (semi) independent individual.

Needless to say, she has only gotten MORE independent as the years have passed.

But it's kinda funny, looking at how geographically close we were on that April 5th and comparing it to today:  I am home in Connecticut with three crazy cats;  Abbie is at school in Wenham, MA where she is attending the first training session as part of the crew that will orientate next fall's freshman class, and Bll is in Kasulu, Tanzania, helping to install solar panels and "computerizing" the Anglican diocese office there.

And yet, the world is much smaller, and we are much closer than we could have been had we been this spread out twenty-two years ago:  I overnighted a package to Abbie (which she got yesterday) with a birthday party in it.  I have talked to Bill twice today, and though Bill has not yet talked to Abbie (she never seems to be able to answer her cell when he calls), he has left her a voice mail message consisting of the entire Kasulu Cathedral choir singing "Happy Birthday" to her, and also emailed her a small video with Birthday wishes.

Due to crazy schedules such as these, Birthdays in our family seem to spread out over several days and sometimes even weeks.  Bill will still be absent for her family celebration next weekend, but she will get her birthday gift from him (really too heavy to UPS to her), and she and Alex (her boyfriend) and I will celebrate by attending Cirque du Solei.  Not bad.

Today's call from/to Tanzania found Bill in Kasulu.  He and the Bishop were able to fly out and most of the baggage arrived with them, including, thankfully, the Loring's luggage.  All of the computer equipment and, I assume, the solar panel, made it safely, but Bill's guitar was left behind, again due to weight restrictions.  Bill's immediate concern is that most of his clothes are also in the guitar case, but he had moved some to one of the computer bags after giving the Bishop his laptop, and was carrying his toiletry kit.  He will survive until Saturday when the Bishop will next be making the trip to Kigoma.  The ironic thing is that the guitar case, although it is large and bulky, actually weighs a lot less than either of the computer bags, but it actually was probably the baggage that Bill could most afford to have delayed.  He would have been most upset if any of the computer gear had been left behind.

The Lorings spent the day at the Kasulu Bible College and are reported to have enjoyed themselves immensely.  They spent the day seeing the computer room, the library, such as it is, and talking with the staff and students.  They immediately saw the need for more electric power to supply the computers.  According to Bill, Festus says that they should have enough if they could double the solar panels to a total of eight panels and add four more storage batteries.

On the domestic front, I sent out the Connecticut State income taxes (owe them money this year....drat!), mailed Abbie's birthday care package and bought Cirque du Soleil tickets for Saturday, April 19th for Bill and I to enjoy the weekend after he returns.  It's gonna be fun!

And now for a quiet evening at home, with no place to go, and nothing that MUST be done!

There are three ways to cross Tanzania from Dar es Salaam to Kasulu, in Kigoma Provence where we work with the Diocese of Western Tanganyka:

• Drive - Bill has done this. Once. It takes two days (if you don't get stuck behind a broken or bogged down truck) and only the first third is on anything resembling a paved road.  The remaining two thirds is rutted unpaved dusty/muddy (depending on the season) that is darned close to off-roading.
• Train - Neither Bill nor I have done this.  I understand that it takes two to three days.
• Fly - and the only way to fly is the once a day flight that goes from Dar es Salaam to Tabora to Kigoma and back to Dar es Salaam.  This service is provided by "Tanzania's fastest growing airline", Precision Air. The plane is a piston-prop (ATR-42) that seats a little over 40 and also serves as the air-freight provider between the three cities.  It is the kind of airline that closes down it's office in Kigoma because all the employees are needed at the airport when the daily flight comes in.  Being folks who are short on vacation time, our method of moving from one side of the country to the other is to fly.

So Bill, the Bishop and the Lorings were supposed to fly out to Kigoma today along with a whole load of baggage.  The Lorings flew out - without their luggage - but Bill and the Bishop did not.  It is currently early autumn in Tanzania and I guess that the rainy season has not completely finished up yet.  Apparently the airline decided that the current weather required them to take on more fuel, and to make up for the additional weight they bumped passengers - and luggage.  Bill and the Bishop got bumped.  Enough passengers were upset enough with the airline for the airline to realize that they needed to do a pretty good job compensating the stranded passengers.  Bill and the Bishop are spending the night at the New Africa Hotel, courtesy of Precision Air.  Hopefully, they will make it to Kigoma and Kasulu tomorrow.  At least it is a morning flight so that they will not loose an entire other day.

Bill said that the meeting with the Arch-Bishop went well, although the arch-bishop could not state anything definitive at this time.  He plans to meet with the other  bishops shortly after his installation (he is actually the Arch-Bishop-elect at the moment) to decide on policy of ordaining out-of-province clergy.  It is likely that the Tanzanian House of Bishops will decide to take this step.

Then Bill spent his evening (when he wasn't calling me via Skype) putting out fires at work - 7,000 miles away.  Ain't technology great?

On the home front the crazy cleaning lady came today.  She managed to pull down the shelf over the guest bed, lolly bolts and all, while dusting it, so I have another chore for this weekend's list.  My manager called to let me know about this year's raises:  I got a raise way better than I ever expected considering the current state of the economy.  And now I am spending the evening putting together a care package for Abbie's birthday.

I was up too late last night picking up for the crazy cleaning lady's visit today and can barely keep my eyes open.  Time for a change of venue.

Bill's appointment with the Arch-Bishop has been rescheduled for tomorrow morning.  His original appointment had been scheduled so late in the afternoon that he would not have been able to fly to Kigoma until tomorrow, but Bill and Diane were scheduled to fly out this afternoon.

That was before Precision Air, a misnamed airline if ever I saw one, canceled today's flights.  Bill and Diane are staying over in Dar es Salaam tonight with Bill and Bill, Bishop Mpango, and the Lorings will all fly to Kigomo and then drive to Kasulu tomorrow afternoon.  A good thing too:  apparently Bill and Diane had used their 10-hour layover in London to do some sight-seeing and were absolute basket cases of exhaustion when they arrived in Dar es Salaam.  The party's luggage will include not only everything they brought from the states (remember those eight laptops, drum machine, guitar, etc.?) but has expanded to also include a printer and a solar panel. 

One of the four solar panels purchased last year was damaged in transit.  Unfortunately, Festus did not check the panel until he got it to Kasulu, so there was no way to pin it on Precision Air and the project has had to eat the cost of replacing it.  This time it will be examined as it goes on the plane and as soon as it comes off the plane and explicit instructions will be given. 

On the home front a WII has been acquired for Abbie's birthday and Allie-Cat has managed to walk all over my work laptop's keyboard in such a way as to shut it down.  Usually I protect the keyboard from heat-seeking felines by putting an upside-down wire type "in-basket" over it when I step away, but I forgot to this time.  So I have just spent 15 minutes rebooting and connecting through VPN and logging into my work email to make sure that I have not missed any important last minute communications.  I now have only an hour to do my bible study homework before I have to leave.  Guess I better get to it!

Me, that is

I've been spending all day putting out fires.  Or at least attempting to.

Sub-title:  my husband should not be let out of the country without a keeper.

The day started at 6:30 am with a phone call from Bill.  An ATM machine had eaten his ATM card.  In Dar es Salaam.  Totally his own fault:  he forgot to grab to card from the machine after he was done making a withdrawal and when it sat there in the slot for a given period of time, the machine ate it as a security precaution.  That  time was up in the few minutes it took his cab to drive around the block and for him to realize that he had forgotten the card.  He checked with the bank and they have his card, but they can't give it back. 

No travelers checks.  We learned the hard way on a previous trip that no one will cash them.

Best way to get cash in country is via the an ATM.  And Tanzania pretty much runs on cash exclusively.

He does have two credit cards, but we don't have pins for either of them.  The rates for cash advances on credit cards are obnoxious.  The pins got shredded along with those lovely little checks they send you every month for "balance transfers".  So I spent most of the morning contacting credit card companies attempting to get new pins for the credit cards.  Turns out that you can get a new pin immediately, over the phone, as long as you know the OLD pin.  Not useful if you don't know the OLD pin.  Hoped that perhaps one of the companies could overnight the new pin to the house and then I could call Bill and give it to him, but no such luck.  We have new pins for both cards coming in the mail, a little late to do any immediate good, but instead of shredding these, they will go into my files, just in case.  Bill DOES have a bad track record with ATM cards in Tanzania.  But last time I was there to help him out.

One credit card rep did have a suggestion:  That a bank should give him cash just on the basis of the card itself, or failing that, he should be able to get cash at a casino, although the exchange rates would be worse.  Bill had already tried two banks with no success, but there was the casino option (maybe he would have had to buy and then sell back chips...real weird for folks that don't even play the lottery.)

We are not without friends in the area, so it will be interesting to see how God helps us solve this challenge. 

The rest of the day was spent putting out the little sparks and fires that is my job on a Monday, that is also the last day of the quarter.  The last expected page of the evening has been delt with at least.  but not before the day drained the last of my energy.  But tomorrow I don't have pager duty.  And tomorrow, Bill meets with the arch-bishop.

I've heard from Bill.  He's made it safely to Dar es Salaam and had no issues with customs.  He was waiting to have dinner with the Bishop, who had recently arrived at the hotel and was cleaning up.  He doesn't know yet if he will be meeting with the arch-bishop tomorrow or Tuesday. 

I picked up a headset so that I can use Skype to call him while he is in-country, but I haven't down-loaded Skype yet.  I need to either do that, or buy some phone card minutes on-line before tomorrow.

I have been trying to get a AIM screen name so that Abbie can IM me, but the service doesn't seem to be available today.

I have, however come up with the BEST idea for celebrating Abbie's birthday.  Her birthday is actually next Saturday, but she has a mandatory half-day retreat for O-crew (the orientation crew that will be greeting new students next fall).  So the following Saturday, I am taking her, Alex, and myself (of course!) to Cirque du Soliel in Hartford.  Cirque will only be in Hartford for a month and I only had the idea a day or so ago, so I am really lucky that I was able to get tickets.  Bill will have to miss out this time as he will still be in Tanzania.  I feel a little bad about that...but just a little.

And Woody is already starting to drive me crazy.  He has been bouncing on the rocking chair, looking out the window and calling at the top of his voice.  It may have been due to all the folks next door at a party, but I really think he's looking for Bill.  Leave me here alone with a cat calling at the top of his voice cause he's gone...feeling a lot less bad about going to Cirque before he gets back!

Got back a couple of hours ago from dropping Bill off at the airport.  He is off on his annual trip to Tanzania.  He is traveling by himself this time, although a retired priest and his wife, members of our congregation, will be arriving in Dar  Es Salaam on Tuesday and will be traveling with him to Kigoma and Kasulu.  Bill, the retired priest, as been asked to do some speaking at a leadership conference they are having for the priests of the Diocese starting next weekend.

My Bill's goals for this trip is to:  1.) introduce Bill and Diane (the retired priest and his wife) to the diocese and Bishop  Mpango, as Diane has expressed a strong interest in helping out with getting funds for the diocese. 2.) Upgrade the computer systems in the diocesan office (more on that below) and 3.) Meet with the new Anglican arch-bishop of Tanzania with Bishop Mpango with the eye to  possibly being ordained in the Tanzanian Anglican Church at some time in the future.

It was not as hard leaving Bill at the airport as it was last time I sent him to Tanzania.  Probably because Abbie didn't go with him this time, although she is not at home, but at school up in Wenham, Massachusetts.  At least one of the two people who fill my heart is only 3.5 hours away, as opposed to BOTH of them being on their way to the other side of the world.  Still the house WILL be lonely for the next two weeks plus.  I am going to have to make a list of little projects and chores to try to get done while Bill is gone.  I also need to try to get some friends to come over next weekend so that Woody, our male short-haired Oriental cat, can get a dose of mail companionship.  If he has to wait until the following weekend when Abbie and Alex will be here, he will drive me nuts!

In the meantime, the first little chore I have to deal with is removing all the cartons and other detritus that is the result of setting up and packing the eight laptop computers WITH computer bags, two wireless routers, network cards, extra disk drives, an electronic drum machine, and amplinance for digital sound recording (plus spare) that Bill brought with him to Tanzania.  It turns out that laptops have gone down so much in price that it was cheaper for him to buy them here and to upgrade one of the existing diocesan desktops to a file server than it was to get a new server capable of running multiple thin-client sessions plus the thin-client appliances, monitor screens and wireless adapters.  He was a little heavy on the luggage side:  TWO rolling LL Bean duffle bags filled with electronics, plus his monster traveling guitar case which also contained most of his clothes.  His carry on included not one, but three laptops (one is his).  He had to pay an extra $130 for checking 3 bags, but that is MUCH cheaper than shipping everything would be.  We locked the duffles with TSA approved padlocks and told the TSA inspectors that the duffles had computer equipment and the other case a guitar and everything went through fine.

Bill left a message on the answering machine just before they took off:  the flight isn't very full and he managed to get a row with three seats all to himself.  He hopes to be doing a lot of sleeping as, just like most nights before taking off on a trip early the next morning, we were up until the wee hours while he finished packing and getting organized.  He should arrive in Dubai around midnight, or a little earlier, my time, and be in Dar Es Salaam just about the time I should be getting up to go to church tomorrow morning.  (Of course it will be three in the afternoon, Tanzanian time.)  And he hopes to meet with the Arch-bishop sometime Monday, although currently the appointment is set up for Tuesday, as well as do other business in the city.

Abbie suggested that I get on instant messenger, now that I have my MacBook and can load what I want on it...so I back to wrestling with AIM in creating my user account...then on to creating, and doing the list.

To my complete surprise, and despite the depredations that the mortgage meltdown and credit liquidity issues have done to financial institutions in general, and my employer in particular, I got a bonus this year.  33% percent less than last year, it is true, but still, not a bad hunk of change. 

I have been yearning for a while to have a laptop of my own.  Yes, I have a laptop, but that belongs to my employer and I am very careful about what I do and don't put on it and I certainly don't take it to places like Tanzania.  Bill and I have been discussing life-style changes as well:  things that he really won't have time for when he starts seminary and that I might take over for him.  They too, will be much easier to accomplish if I am not chained to the family desktop station.

So...after much discussion, we decided that a macbook would make sense, especially now that they run on the new intel chips so that you can duel boot the things with windows and other MS products as well as having the use of the products the Apple does so well.  And that is what I am writing on now.  It's going to take a while before it becomes completely my own.  I am having an interesting time getting used to the keyboard.  But I think that I am going to have fun!

As for the busy winter:

Work of course:  there is always more to be done or that can be done than there is time to do it in.

Bill and I have spent the weekends that we were at home lazily driving around the greater Danbury area, running this errand and that:  Trader Joe's, the mall, Costco, large electronic box stores, etc. 

We spent the President's day weekend up in Maine at Sunday River with Abbie and Alex, who we picked up from Gordon on the way up.  I did not ski this year; my left knee is a bit sore, but had a good time none the less reading and knitting and working my way through the Head First Java book.  (Java:  another reaSunday River Grand in a suite with living room/kitchenette and bedroom.  With the Murphy bed and pullout couch in the living room, there were plenty of beds for everyone.  We dropped the kids back at school Sunday night and enjoyed a lazy Monday off from work.

Just before we left for our winter weekend, Bill and I decided to attend a Faith Alive at St. Bart's in Pewakee, Wisconsin.  Faith Alive had sent out an urgent request for more adult witnesses, and it turned out that Pewakee is right next to Nashotah, were the seminary that Bill is applying to is located.  Two goals with one stone, so to speak.  We got our tickets, planning to fly out to Milwaukee on Thursday, Feb 28th and Bill had his interview at Nashotah House all set for Friday.  Tom Kirner died Feb 23rd, and the funeral was planned for 6:00 pm Thursday.  Abbie came home Tuesday night.  I changed my flight out to Friday so I could go to the funeral with her.  Thursday morning the coordinator  for the St Bart's weekend called to let us know that the person who was supposed to be leading music for the weekend had the flu and couldn't attend.  Bill had already left for the airport...with his guitar.  So I packed chordsheets and some wires and microphone stuff and we had a lovely weekend at St Bart's even though I did miss getting to really see Nashotah House.

Last weekend was taxes.  'Nuff said.

This weekend was supposed to be Abbie's taxes and shopping with her in preparation for her Spring Break trip to California.  Alex's grandfather had a heart attack Saturday night and died early Wednesday morning.  Abbie is still in Peabody and we will be driving up there to attend the funeral Saturday morning.  Abbie and I will do her taxes and FASA form on Sunday and I will drive her to the airport Monday morning.  She did her shopping up in the Peabody area.

Now, a byte to eat and back to work.

...Just saw the daughter off to Spring Semester (why do they call it "Spring" when there will be snow on the ground most of the time?).

I know that I will be fine in a day or two...maybe even sooner, but right now I am sad.  I won't be seeing her again until mid-February, and to do that I need to trade work on-call weekends with someone as the plan would be to do a quick snowboarding weekend up at Sunday River.  I almost certainly would not ski: my knee is a little "wonky" just now, but I would go up and hang out at the lodge.

The house feels more empty because it was not just Abbie who was here, but Alex as well.

She had a hard time getting everything to fit into her car and really couldn't see out of the back window.  This kinda upset her because she "brought all this stuff home and it fit".  Well, all of it except the new printer (in the printer box) and the humidifier, also in the box, but not in the box when she left.  I did see it all in the back of the Yaris, or most of it when I picked her up at the Delany's on Dec. 20th, but I did have to put the back seat down in the RAV-4 to get it all in (although not neatly).  She didn't want to put any of her stuff in Alex's car.  Point of pride I guess.  And she was quick to get angry at me.  I think that she was looking for something to get mad at me about:  easier to leave home if your mad at Mom, I guess.  She didn't say good-bye to any of the cats.  Not even Marlie, her cat.  I'm again guessing, easier not to.  I feel bad for Marlie, but I suspect that Marlie is oblivious.  Marlie really loves Abbie when she's home, but I'm the one who feeds her and pays attention when she wants to play...oh but I do miss Abbie!

The good things about Abbie being back at school:  easier to plan meals that Bill and I like (and are healthier) that Abbie doesn't like.  Less laundry to do.  Don't need to keep the heat up in the house during the day....a mixed blessing:  saves money, but I'm frozen.

I miss her!

January 4th and the official anniversary of my natal day.  It's seems appropriate to make a few remarks, especially as I haven't found time to update since November.

I guess I must admit to being well and truly into middle age at this point.  My face and other parts are sagging more than they were and no matter how much I diet and exercise, even if I were more disciplined and thus more successful at doing these things, there is no way that my figure will rebound into that of a twenty-year old.  Certainly not without plastic surgery, which I don't believe in, for me at least, and probably not even WITH plastic surgery.  I have been blessed with good genes and my daughter's friends, at least, don't believe that her Mom looks at all near her age.  But I am probably at the age that my grandmother was when I accused her of being "an old, old woman" in answer to some disagreement we had...I think that I was three and a half at the time, so she forgave me and told the story for years.

The last few weeks have been very busy and I am partied out.  I had an unexpected trip up to the Boston area to pick up Abbie from school as she came down with a case of Mono just as final exams hit.  She is very tired from the Mono and I did not want her driving three and a half hours home by herself.  We left the next day (Saturday, Dec. 22nd) to go to Cape Cod and spend a couple of days with my Mom and that side of the family, and to do an early Christmas with them.  Abbie spent most of the weekend up in our room, resting and sleeping.

We left for home the morning of Christmas Eve, traveling north to Peabody to pick up Abbie's car, which we had left at her boyfriend, Alex's house.  We had to visit there for 30 minutes or so longer than we had planned, as Alex's sister, brother-in-law and new son had gone to visit the pastor of their church, to discuss the baby's dedication.  They had taken Alex's car, and Abbie's car keys were on his key ring.  We got home a little later than  we meant to.  We still hadn't decorated the Christmas tree It was up and had lights on, but no ornaments.  I had also not yet made our traditional Christmas eve desert of creme brule.  And we were tired from all the driving.  We had intended to go the the 5:00 pm Christmas Eve service, but never made it.  Instead we took our time making dinner, trimming the tree, wrapping gifts and watching "A Christmas Story" on television.

We slept in Christmas morning.  Abbie was astounded that it was well after 9:00 am when she got up.  I suspect it was mostly a result of the Mono...but maybe also partly that she's "getting old!"  After presents and breakfast, Bill made his sweet potatoes and I made a green bean casserole, as requested by Paul, who was orchestrating the Schrull side of the Christmas feast.  We all gathered at Grandma Schrull's apartment, which is a little on the small side for a Grandma, her live-in companion, three bothers, their wives (well almost, more later), a mother-in-law (well almost, again) and four grandkids - three of whom are over twenty-one and one of whom was under two weeks old.  We did some grandchild and grandmother gift exchanging, and feasted on Turkey, fixings and pie.  Nomi's mother, Taca-something-I-can't-remember, the almost mother-in-law, enjoyed the Turkey and fixings so much she had a large second helping.  She's a very slight Japanese woman, with no English, and we were all surprised and pleased to see her enjoy the traditional American food so much.

Christmas day was followed by three days of work for myself and Bill.  Bill was going a bit insane trying to finish up on reports and features to a major new business management system that his company was going live with on January 2nd.  The poor honey was putting in a lot of late nights and absolutely exhausted.  Abbie was also doing a lot of resting, but also starting to get bored.  Thursday evening Alex arrived, which helped alleviate Abbie's boredom, but required a trip to Sturbridge on Bill's part, to pick up Alex, as Alex's car was in the shop getting major work done.  Abbie and Alex borrowed my car for a date on Friday night (gotta teach that boy how to drive standard!) and then the real "Schrull" weekend began.

Saturday (Dec. 29th) we drove up to Putney Vt were Rob and Nomi formalized their marriage.  I can't really say that they "got married".  There were maybe 20 of us or so seated in a double circle in the main meeting room of the church.  There was Bill and I and Abbie and Alex, Rob's two daughter's, Kirsten and Meggie, Pati, Rob's ex-wife and her partner, Michael, and Michael's two daughters.  There was Nomi's mother, and Nomi and Rob's, by then, two week old son, Ray (my new nephew).  And there were a few friends:  a gal who works for American airlines that Rob has gotten to know well from all his trips back and forth to Japan, a couple, the husband of which, it turns out, was Rob and Patti's marriage counselor, and Paul G. and his wife.  And maybe one or two other's that I don't recall. Looking at the relationships of most of the folks in the room, all I can say is that it was very "new-age Vermont", and it only got more-so.

Nomi was lovely in a long white and pink flowered gown that looked a little cold for the weather, was late 1970'd/early '80s in style and that I thought I recognized as something that I had seen Patti where in the past.  Patti HAD worn it in the past.  Later that weekend Abbie was looking through old family photographs, and Patti was wearing that dress at Bill's and my wedding. 

Paul G., who is the former paster at the Church of the Brethren in Putney acted as master of ceremonies and started the occasion with a long discourse/homily on how that systems of the world and families were changing/needed to change and how, though Jesus was still very important to him, he no longer called himself a Christian.  He went on for quite a while about some things that I found very theologically weird and off, but finally came around to  Rob and Nomi had made a family, were in effect already married, but wanted to share this relationship with friends and family.  Rob and Nomi then got up to speak to each other.  I can't remember really what they said to each other, but I think that I recall Rob saying that he was embracing Nomi's Japanese culture almost as much as he was Nomi.  And I really don't know exactly what Nomi said, as she said it to Rob in Japanese (Rob translated later, and I think it was how Nomi felt so much a part of Rob's family and ending with "I love you"), but Nomi's Mom did the true mother-thing and burst into tears during Nomi's speech.

After that, we gathered around Nomi and Rob to silently pray for them (or meditate or what-ever your inner Vermont hippie suggested, I prayed) and that was that.  No other vows.  No exchanging of rings.  Then we all went back to the house to enjoy finger-foods and wine.  When it started to get dark, we headed back to Connecticut.

Sunday:  Schrull family weekend, part two.  All four of us (Bill, me Abbie and Alex) went to middle service at church...separate cars for Bill and me and Abbie and Alex.  Abbie and Alex headed off to do some shopping for a friend's birthday.  Bill and I headed to Costco and bought all the finger food necessary for a birthday party/open house of 45 folks to celebrate Bill's Mom's 90th birthday (which was actually on Dec 26th.)  We had it at her apartment...the same tiny apartment that was on the over-loaded side with just family on Christmas day. 

We got to Mom Schrull's apartment around 1:00 pm, so that we could get everything setup for the party.  Rob had mistaken the time of the party start and arrived shortly thereafter.  We got everything set up and I started baking hot finger-foods in the oven.  We had sent out the invitations stating the the party was an "open house", hoping that most folks would take the hint and stagger there arrivals and not stay for the whole thing:  45 people really crowds our house, and we have almost three times the space.  Not being a crowd person, I decided that I would spend the party in the kitchen dealing with heating up more finger-foods.  Needless to say, Open House or not, the majority of the folks were in the apartment around 3:30 or 4:00 and the party was literally, as they say in Regency novels, "a crush".  Abbie and Alex were wise and arrived for only the last hour.  And Mom Schrull enjoyed it immensely.

I took New Year's Eve off from work so that I could run around preparing for my final social responsibility of the season:  Our annual New Year's Day Ham party.  Another party that went off very well, but as usual we had WAY too much ham left over so I was sending care packages of ham home with all of the guests.  I don't know WHY "they" say that it takes a whole ham to feed 18 to 20 people.  We had at least 30 folks and even with sending care packages home, there is still probably a third of that ham left in our fridge!

So know it's my birthday, the final celebration of the season, and one for which (thank you, God!) I have "no responsibility here what-so-ever".  Abbie and I went to a spa today for facials, manicures and pedicures, my first ever (Abbie has had manicures and pedicures in the past, but it was also her first facial).  Bill is cooking dinner tonight AND doing the dishes and tomorrow night, after Alex gets here, we are going out for REALLY good sushi.  Happy Birthday to Me!

There is a mouse somewhere in my living room.  A live mouse.  I know.  I saw it not 10 minutes ago.  But it has disappeared leaving me and three cats puzzled as to it's location.

This is not the first time there has been a mouse in my living room...but usually it has been brought, dead or comatose, from the basement, as a trophy by Woodrow Alexander Cat.

This evening, as I was catching up on the news online, I heard a bunch of thumping under the piano.  Cats.  Playing.  (10 feet from me....I am oblivious.)  All three cats seemed to be involved in some kind of game...not too usual, it's usually only one or two cats at a time.  And I don't think that we have have cat toys that go "squible-squable-squeek!".  Or do we?  Finally looked over at the cats to find that the "cat toy" was a live gray mouse.

The mouse would run a foot this way and a foot that way, to be constantly blocked by one of the three cats:  even the two non-hunters, Allie-Cat and Marlie Prudence could not let this creature alone.  I went into the kitchen to get a couple of pieces of paper towel to see if I could capture it (and dump it outside where it rightfully belongs).

I should have stayed out of the dance.  The mouse used my entrance into the capture pattern to go over to the section of the room near the wing chair and the fireplace and effectively disappear.  The cats have done some casting about....including following it's probable trail from the basement stairs and seem to have decided that the mouse has taken up residence under the heater.

In digging under the heater after the mouse, Woody has unearthed a treasure:  one of the glittery pom-pom balls that were beloved cat toys 5 or 6 years ago (we must have bought and lost more 100 of them) but which have been impossible to find for the last 3 or 4 years.  Marlie and Allie Cat have abandoned the great mouse hunt in favor of the glitter pom-pom, which I find fascinating as they did not exist when Marlie was a kitten, and she is completely uninterested in the plain white or white and red pom-poms which I found and brought home a couple of weeks ago.

I guess that girls just gotta have bling.

The first time I saw Meerkat Manor was around this time last year.  The Animal Planet Channel is not one that I normally watch:  not into training dogs, vet emergencies and so on.  We (my husband and I) had paid the $30.00 USD necessary to sit in the first class lounge at the Dar es Salaam airport, waiting for our flight to Amsterdam to board.  We considered it to be a reasonable price to pay as it provided "free" food and drink (when we had not had supper yet), comfy seats and wide screen television.  A small dose of luxury before cramming ourselves into KLM's cramped tourist class seats for eight hours. 

When the current adventure film on the large screen had finished playing, the lounge attendant switched the channel to the Animal Planet channel and Meerkat Manor.  I was enchanted.  This was not just some nature show.  This was romance and soap opera and family drama!  As well as meerkat vs mother nature.  I was not quite sure exactly when the show was on at home, and did not remember to make the effort to look it up, but continued to watch it from time to time when I ran across it.

This fall I discovered when the show actually run and started watching it every Friday night that we have been home.  Bill discovered that it is also available online, so when we haven't been home I have been catching up that way.  The adventures of the Whisker's family,  the meerkat wisdom of their matriarch (dominant female), Flower and her kids and extended family and their relations with the other extended families in that patch of the South African desert have been a little part of my life.  I have come to care about these particular small creatures, that can look almost human as they stand upright keeping guard, and for whom family is so very important.

Then, last Friday, it happened:  after accepting into the family a small pup abandoned by another (enemy) family after a raid, Flower was bitten by an Asp while defending her new-born pups.  It was a mortal byte.  Flower's pups were not left completely motherless as any number of their sisters and aunts can feed and care for them, but what I considered to be the heart of the Whiskers famliy is dead.  I confess:  I cried.  In fact I have been tearing up this last week when ever it came to mind. 

Bill is not sympathetic:  "Aww...come on...it's a wild animal.  Meerkats are dying in that desert all the time."

Yes, and even worse people in the Sudan and other areas of the world are also dying all the time from  ethnic "cleansing" and famine and disease and other horrors and I don't weep.

The difference is that through watching weeks of this show, I have come to know (or at least think I know), Flower.  I have built, in a sense, a relationship, as one-sided as it might be, with her.  The other animals in the desert, the, even worse, people who are dying under conditions that they should not have to endure, are not as real to me as Flower was.

Which brings me to our current project of raising funds for the Kasulu Bible College.  The college is in desperate need of funds as the diocese no longer accepts funds from organizations that now promote practices and theology that it (the diocese) disagrees with, for example, The Episcopal Church (TEC) of the United States.  As an advocate for the diocese of Western Tanganyka and the Kasulu Bible College, Bill is trying to raise funds from more theologically orthodox sources, so that the college will not have to shut down.  While Bill knows and loves the folks at the college personally, it is proving to be a little difficult to pass that passion and the urgency on to other's who do not.  The one exception to this is those folks who have come into contact with Daudi, a teacher from the Bibile College who is attending seminary in Wisconsin for two years to further his education.  Those who come into contact with Daudi are eager to help the college.  By seeing and meeting and talking with Daudi, they can more personally see the college.  They are able to form a more direct relationship with the college.

It is all about the caring that comes from getting to personally know people...or animals.

So, I while I will care in an academic sense about those in far off corners of the world affected by earth quakes and floods and mad marching armies, I will have a greater sense of urgency that the Bible College get the funds it needs to keep going....and I will weep for Flower.

One of the best things to happen to me recently, health-wise, was the fact that my husband ate enough while we were in Alaska to finally tip the scales over 200 pounds.  Suddenly, he is eating salads at work and cooking healthier at home.  For once my attempts to eat healthier and lose weight are not being sabotaged at the dinner table.  I hope that we can continue the trend as the weather gets colder and the desire for heartier fare steals across our souls. 

The trick is portion control...something the daughter, Abbie, is very good at....but then I never made her clean her plate, while we grew up hearing that children in Europe were starving.  (Now there is a sentiment that dates....the children in Europe are NOT starving these days...the children in many parts of Africa are starving, but not the children in Europe.  And just because they are starving, why should we clean our plates and become obese?  How is that going make the starving children feel better?  Better that we should exercise portion control, buy less food ourselves and send our pennies to a NGO trying to feed those starving children.)

But I digress...I too picked up pounds in Alaska.  I am not sure how many pounds as I had been avoiding the scale before we left...and I am not sure how many I have dropped since we got back as I avoided it for a while afterwards as well.  But I appear to have shed at least 5 pounds since I started paying attention.  Unfortunately, that is still 5 pounds more than I weighed when I returned from Africa last year (there is nothing like spending two weeks on a mission trip in Africa to help you lose weight:  the food is boring and the folks are generous but I rarely wanted to go back for seconds) ...and more than 50 pounds more than the health charts think I should weigh...I I were to weigh what the health charts say I would look like a skeleton...with wide hips and rib cage and a flat chest.  But losing 30 pounds...that would be nice.

They say that to make healthy changes you should set small goals and reward yourself each time you reach one...The question is:  how do you reward yourself in a healthy way for each little goal reached, and in a way that does not blow your bank budget?

Abbie's moving day to be precise.  It's absolutely gorgeous out.  I don't know why this mostly seems to happen on days that you can't actually enjoy the weather:  go to the beach, have a picnic...sit on the deck with a book, but that almost always seems to be the way.  Either I have to work, or travel or something else that I would rather not be doing.

We were supposed to leave by 10:00 am...Abbie wasn't feeling well and we're just startng to carry stuff out to load the cars....gonna be a long day.

...and the signs are all about me as the living room fills up with the semi-packed containers of the pieces of my daughter's life that she will be bringing back to school on Monday.  I always used to be sad at the end of summer as a kid...partially, I think, it was because of leaving Cape Cod where we always spent the last part (if not all) of summer.  I dislike it as much now:  I miss my daughter when she is away.  I know that I will quickly get used to it and that there are benefits such as not having to worry about making sure that there is something that she likes on the dinner menu (she can be a bit of a picky eater), but I will miss her and many of the perspectives on life that she shares with me.  And I will miss shopping with her....even if the money usually comes out of my wallet...

The summer has been both long a short.  Two weeks after Bill and Abbie returned from Africa (I didn't win the lottery while they were gone, by the way), Bill and I boarded a plane for Alaska, where we spend a little over a week with my Mom, one of my sisters, and my brother cruising the Southeast passages.  We were on one of the smaller cruise ships with a little over 90 other passengers and it was a magical experience.

It's funny though:  about two weeks after we were back, as I was struggling with yet another road-block on my current project at work, I found myself thinking that "I need a vacation".  But I had just gotten back from vacation!

What I finally realized this morning is that I have not had a "sit back and relax, reading a book, hang out on the beach/porch, with family/friends vacation" in over two years.  I have had vacations, yes:  I have gone skiing ( a four-day mid-week where the sprinkler pipes broke and we had to evacuate the condo that was flooding), Disney World (did the deluxe version with pre-paid meals and Cirque du Soleil, but if you've ever done Disney you know that you never just sit and read a book),  a little over two weeks in Africa (a mission trip where we were working on an internet cafe for a bible college and I ended up teaching an English class for eight days...yes I did a lot of reading in the evenings, but with the teaching responsibilities and the culture shock, relaxing it was NOT) and this year, Alaska....where you are up before six every morning afraid that you might miss something beautiful out on deck, and touring...and there were days at see when we HAD to spend the afternoons napping.

I miss some of the summers we used to have when Abbie was in grade and middle school, when we would spend two weeks at the Cape, and aside from planning a day on Martha's Vinyard, pretty much took each day as it came.  We would be there, all three of us, with my parents.  Usually my youngest sister would be there and we would often overlap with one of my other siblings.  We would do jigsaw puzzles and walk and swim on the beach.  Sometimes go for a sail on one of my uncles' boats....the biggest decision we would have to make would be what to buy and cook for dinner.  I would thoroughly relax during those times and I miss them.

Because of Bill's trip to Africa this spring, which I did not go on, I have a lot of vacation days still available to me...but how to take some of them so that I get the most benefit from them....