Sunday, June 20, 2010

Water, Water, Everywhere

A week in the Kentuckiana region (Louisville and the parts of southern Indiana right across from Louisville) really got me started thinking about living with humidity again. Great for my skin and violin, tough on my hair and any outdoor activity. Therefore, we stayed indoors for most of the rest of the Midwestern trip, which gave us time to make some preliminary plans for when Helen and Tim come to Shanghai, which they started talking about as soon as they heard our news in February. I read the first few pages of a book on learning "the basic 800" Chinese characters, a wonderful gift from Joe's sister Lisa, and was greatly encouraged to learn that the system of characters is no more complicated than reading musical notation. I wonder if the authors know how to read musical notation... We also visited with one of my seminary professors who was thrilled with the news and called me "Lottie Moon," a famous early missionary to China so loved by the Southern Baptist denomination that we named our foreign missions offering drive after her. (Remember that, Baptist friends?) In the continuing coincidence department, we ran into one of Joe's multicultural counseling professors as we were walking to our plane in the Louisville airport, so Joe was able to get some quick ideas about resources.

We got back to Flagstaff, thanks to Rhonda and Andy's taxi service, and found Faun with a newly broken hand (fourth or fifth metacarpal, nice waterproof blue cast), and we've spent this weekend hearing news about successive fires on every side of the city. Our home is safe (so far), but where is all that water when you need it? Rhonda offered to take Jack back with her, but I held off, as we'd barely seen him during the summer and I didn't think I could combine Father's Day with moving my dog away. I bought myself four more weeks, so we'll see if the idea gets any easier... hmmm, what are the odds? Also, we've started the party planning for here and in Phx, and the lists seem to get longer every day - whew! Well, I'm off to pray for rain; maybe a modern Lottie Moon can be effective in a slightly different role.

2 comments:

  1. oh, Faun. How did she break her hand again?!

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  2. Well, I just now saw your comment. Evidently the blog doesn't notify me when I have a comment; good to know.
    Faun broke her hand while "speedwalking" either to or from Dominic's with a pizza. She had 45 minutes to get there and back from her house and just got going a bit too fast. You'll have to ask her to email you the whole story, which is hilarious, of course.

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