Kit Kat

The cats were adamant this morning that I not oversleep. Their survival instinct, which in the domesticated variety translates to maintaining an appropriate level of food in their dish, was operating in top form. My feeble argument that this was a day for sleeping in, was ignored. Cats do not recognize holidays. They only recognize empty food dishes.

Their method of getting my attention was to play hide-and-seek at the bedroom door. The feline version of this game requires that one cat be on each side of the door; players attempt to discover the "hidden" location of the other players by scratching huge gaping holes in the carpet in front of their side of the door until the owner of the house (the one who will inevitably pay for new flooring) gets out of bed in a pathetic attempt to grab the players and kick them into the middle of next week. The winner is the one who manages to trip the owner of the house by rubbing against his legs as he is filling the food dish.

For a bonus prize, one of the players can opt to wait until the owner has gone back to bed, and then throw up all over the downstairs carpet. Extra points are awarded for extending the duration of the pre-barf retching so that the owner thinks he can get all the way downstairs and put the cat outside before the actual spillage occurs, and then running away so that the mess is spread through several rooms.

At the End of it All, Coming Home

Coming home after a long international trip is rather anti-climactic.

For all the trouble taken to get there, it seems so dull to merely arrive home and sleep once again in one's own bed. Had it been a movie (aren't all our lives a movie with ourselves as actor and chief spectator?), there would've been some moment of drama, some point of tension where disaster is imminent but averted; am I to be relieved that the conclusion was so ordinary? Perhaps it is best to be thankful for the miracle of ordinariness. Certainly there is enough trouble in the world to be grateful to avoid one's participation in tragedy.

There was a moment where it appeared that we might be delayed due to a mechanical failure on the aircraft, but since the failure had occurred prior to our departure from the terminal, we were never in any immediate danger. Tempers were a bit frayed, of course; tired people are always closer to the edge of hysteria than the well-rested. But the situation was resolved quickly, and the impact was minimal. We arrived home an hour later than originally scheduled.

Perhaps it is the novelty of moving halfway around the world that incites such strange thoughts as these, or perhaps only the peculiar bent of my own mind; but it is always the case that projections of disaster fill my thoughts in these circumstances. So it is that, as the conclusion approaches and various little upsets occur - delays due to mechanical issues, for example - I'm able to laugh them off. They are so small in comparison to the problems I've imagined. Likewise the feeling of relief when the aircraft finally pulls into the gate and I'm only moments away from being with my family again, is overwhelming. I'm home. I'm safe. I'll see my wife and children again.

Sitting in the hotel in India, that relief can only be imagined, and it isn't easy when there are thousands of miles between myself and the moment. So many things could go wrong, so many alternate paths could be taken.

The newspaper (and the news websites) are full of stories with alternate endings. The tornadoes that destroyed families. The earthquakes that brought buildings down on people's heads. The people who pulled the trigger. The soldiers whose lives were ripped apart by bombs. The airplanes whose mechanical failures aggregated to the critical point. The moment of inattention which ends the life of the child.

It seems a miracle to have avoided all those tragedies, yet it is difficult to be grateful for the miracle when the day isn't over yet and there are still so many decision points left, so many opportunities to make the wrong choice, go down the wrong path.

Perhaps it is my mind's way of dealing with the endless opportunities for disaster, forecasting all the possible endgames, traversing the imaginary paths as a chess player traverses the possible outcomes of each move, so that no result is unexpected, there are no surprises. No matter what happens, I've been there (at least in my mind). I have accepted the possibilities. I can keep going.

Meanwhile I sit here in my house on a calm Saturday morning with my family and thank God for the blessing of an uneventful (so far) life.

So long as the cats behave.

Jan's Birthday in India

I don't even know what day it is.

But since it's somewhere near Jan's birthday - Happy birthday, Jan! Be glad you're not in India. Lovely place, if you can stand the bizarre contrasts. But the infrastructure could stand some work.

It took twenty hours and a few airplanes to get here, which totally messed up the ol' sleep pattern, followed by a week of even more confusion caused by a complete inability to stay in bed more than three hours at a time. Getting up at six a.m. local time, heading down to the breakfast buffet and forcing something down (although all my body needs is more caffeine), jumping in the cab for the thirty minute drive through the insanity of Indian traffic, being stuck in a conference room for the next ten hours attempting to answer all manner of technical questions, as well as making decisions on budgets and schedules, finally getting far enough along to justify our departure, spending another hour in traffic (to go about five miles), getting to the hotel too tired to eat, falling asleep til midnight (about four hours sleep), then getting up again because the brain just won't stop.

I haven't taken a single picture.

Maybe next trip (tentatively scheduled for July).

If Cheryl could come, too.

{I miss you, sweetie, more than I can say. I'm just sitting here in the hotel room counting down the hours til I arrive back home and see your face again. It's like an eternity!}

It's difficult to describe this place because it goes against my idea of what makes sense in the world. I'm staying in a tourist hotel which rises ten floors above the ground, and when I look out the window, I see an empty high-rise covered with mildewed plaster surrounded by acres of squalid shacks enclosed by a huge block of fancy buildings which seem form a facade of modernity around the reality of ruin.

The road is filled with traffic night and day, pedestrians and bicycles and carts and three-wheeled taxis and automobiles and trucks and buses who zip through the un-lined streets in completely random manner like ripples on the surface of a stream, meandering left and right and back again; it seems as though there should be an accident occurring every minute, yet there have been none so far. The noise is constant. Everyone honks in order to warn others of their immediate proximity, which means that everyone honks about once every ten seconds. We sit in our taxi going to work in the morning or coming back to the hotel at night and look out at the traffic and the buildings and the people and don't think about it. For some reason we feel safe. Perhaps it is because the driver gives off no sense of alarm.

The city is dirty and random and appears to have no consistent building code. Garbage is left piled along the road. Shop owners come out in the early morning and sweep in front of their stores with little hand-made brooms. Oxen and dogs walk freely through the streets. People mill about in endless variation (although they all blend together into one ambiguous blur after a while). There is great beauty here and there, filled in-between with unbelievable filth.

I'm tired all the time. Everyone is frustrated because there is so much work to do, and so many eager young faces out here who want to do the work, but not enough back in the States to give them the knowledge and training needed to do the job right.
And I can't move to India right now.

{Although I don't care where I live so long as you are with me, Cheryl!}

We leave in less than twenty-four hours. Twenty-four more after that, and I'll be home.

I can't wait.

Eagle Scout

Mahlon Whitead received his Eagle Scout award in a heartwarming ceremony last Saturday evening in Sioux City, Iowa.

That's an easy sentence to write, but it's a difficult concept to grasp. Do you know what it takes to become an Eagle Scout? Not only for the Scout, but for the parents and the troop and the volunteers and all the people who were involved along the way?
Lots and lots of hard work, spread out over years and years. Lots of hand-crafted projects, day trips, hikes, campouts, disasters, bad food, sore feet, cramped hands, moments of triumph and hours of disappointment.

And we won't go into detail about the mosquitoes.

We were proud to be a part of the celebratory event, proud to sit in the audience and watch as a young man was recognized for many years of dedicated work, proud to see a loving and supportive mother recognized for many years of helping him along the path, proud to see a dedicated and hard-working father rewarded for keeping his son energized and active and faithful to those memorable words: "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country ... A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient ..."

We heard stories of Mahlon's loyalty and courage and strength and character, but the one element of his character which stood out in most everyone's thoughts was his integrity. When he says he's going to do something, he does it. And his parents can take much of the credit for forming that character, as we have seen them raise their children to be true to the promises they make, to stand behind their words, to speak the truth and be honest and faithful to their ideals.

But it is still Mahlon's choice to maintain that integrity, to hold true to the goals he has set. And we are honored to be members of his family as he continues the path he has chosen. We hope and pray that he will achieve the goals he has set for himself - they are not easy ones! - so that one day we will gather again to honor him for attaining them.

Getting Crowned

It was a couple months ago, during dinner, that it happened. I bit down on a hard, round chicken bone instead of the soft, tender flesh I was expecting, and the jolt of the impact shot straight through my molar root into my jaw, and a sound like the crack of a whip echoed in my ears. It felt as though the tooth itself had shattered - but it had not. From that point forward, however, any pressure on the top of the tooth resulted in a spike of pain.

Since bi-annual dental appointment was rapidly approaching, I put off doing anything about it until then. No sense in scheduling extra appointments without warrant, and it wasn't causing me so much difficulty as to prevent eating.

My main concern was that the filling ('amalgam' being the technical term) might have become loosened enough to fall out, thus exposing the underlying sub-enamaled surface. Had that occurred, it would've been necessary to hie me to a dentist post-haste!

As it was, the tooth remained sensitive but not painful, allowing me a month or so of grace to prepare for the inevitable. For it was clear that something would need to be done.

And indeed, it was. On the day of the appointment, the regular cleaning was performed, and then we - the dentist and I - discussed the 'incident'. More X-rays were taken, but they revealed no obvious damage. It was possible that the underlying area was merely bruised, but the fact that the symptoms (sensitivity to pressure) had remained after more than two months pointed to more substantial injury. There were but two options to pursue: capping the tooth with a crown, or performing a root canal. Opting for the former, another appointment was scheduled for two days hence.

During that session, impressions were made of my mouth, novocaine was used to stifle my screams, the dentist made short work of my tooth with his little Dremel, shards of old tooth and amalgam filled the air (and fell into my unprotected eyes), more impressions were made of my mouth, a temporary crown was put into place, and I wobbled out the door a new man. Or at least a different man.

Unable to clear the debris from my eyes sufficiently to 'see' my way to work, I went home instead and lay down, rinsing my eyes with drops in an attempt to clear them, and took a nap.

My face, benumbed by the novocaine, took several more hours to return to normal operation. In the meantime, the house was filled with peace and quiet.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jog

And they're off!

They left ahead of schedule, too. 6:45 a.m., practically before our eyes were open, but the car was packed and the kids were ready and the only person who wasn't out of bed was Mary, but they all trooped up to her room and said their good-byes.

Then they piled in the car and drove away, waving and smiling, heading for South and West and Home.