Micro-updates

It's been a while, so a few notes about recent events around here:

For those of you who haven’t heard, I spent last week in St. Petersburg, Florida with my family, helping my dad as he recovers from major heart surgery. The doctors repaired his enlarged aorta and replaced a faulty heart-valve with a titanium one. I came down the day he was released from the hospital, and got to spend a week with him at home, helping with his exercise & medication regimen, and just keeping him company. In some ways it was like old times: we watched college football (South Florida lost to Rutgers, sigh) and laughed at old episodes of our beloved “Andy Griffith Show.” But in other ways it was all a very new situation—he isn’t yet able to be his old active self, though I hope he will be soon.

Then Delta Airlines messed up my return flight, and I spent the night in Atlanta. The less said about that unfortunate evening and its stunning display of abysmal customer service, the better.

This past Tuesday was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had. Mel made an amazing carrot cake (I like it even better than chocolate, which she finds insane, but she indulged me). Then we visited our friend Elizabeth who works on a small, sustainable farm near West Point, Virginia. It’s an amazing little operation, a “Community Supported Agriculture” farm which grows a vast variety of crops on a surprisingly small patch of land. The couple who run the place, both Divinity-school grads, were hospitable in a gracious, low-key way and welcomed us to their lunch table without a second’s hesitation. We want to be that kind of couple.

Now Mel is in Chicago for a reunion with friends. Next she’ll be in Pennsylvania for a few days, doing on-site work with her part-time employer, a social work agency in Philadelphia. I miss her. It’s been raining nonstop since she left, and that just about sums up my mood. But it’s not all gloom; I made a dish I’ve never cooked before, using some vegetables from our own garden, and it turned out pretty well. Rosemary and pepper make anything taste good.

Next week I’ll be meeting Mel in Philly when I go up to CCEF’s annual counseling conference with a group from our church.