Delight in the Darlings!

OK, whew. Those last couple of posts have been anything but uplifting. Let's try some cotton candy for a change. I'll pick on the kids.

So, first there's Colin. We passed him the link you see here from the WSJ about naked pumpkin running on Halloween in Boulder. Now stop. Before you read further, read the story. Really. All of it. Its genius is that they treat it as an actual story and keep coming up with more comments that make it simply hilarious. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125693458626119361.html

OK. Fun, right? We sent it to Colin to remind him of his undergrad days; but as people mature and go to law school, and prepare to enter the law profession, their take on the goings-on changes a bit. To wit:

"Not that I'm really passionate about one's right to run around with pumpkins on one's head. But just so you know, a state law that bars nudity that is "likely to cause affront or alarm" is probably constitutionally overbroad. Especially so when violation results in a sex offense conviction. I read the follow-up stories on November 1. All the streakers covered up. But if they hadn't, and then were charged using that law, I think they could have challenged it and won."

So. There. Former Buff's undergrad morphs into aspiring Philly lawyer.

And then there's Steph, taking the world by storm today in ATL, across the conference floor space from my own meeting. Training 29 men on an on-line application system for vehicle service contracts sold by car dealerships that -truth be told - they'd rather not learn. Yawn. Eye roll. How WILL the young lady capture not just their attention but their engagement and commitment to learning and evangelizing the system in question? Persistence? Personality? Who knows. It's fun to watch, though, and more fun yet to keep meeting in the middle of the Atlanta office, both of us out of respective home turfs, but in the same hotel. At different functions and dinners, but catching up for oh, so brief periods. She is on her way to Buckhead now to "watch the Yankees" while I refuse to "watch the Phillies" in my room. Later she'll sneak in here to sleep in my bed with me before flying to the Bahamas in the morning, ignoring her own room because she's had a stressful week and doesn't get much of a chance to cuddle with her mom. Any city will do. And I'll be asleep when she comes in, but will relish the opportunity to give her hugs in the morning before we both go off to our separate gigs.

Night all.

Oops. Morning postscript. Wake-up call at 5:30, Steph wants to leave by 6 to get to her 8:20 flight. She has a car to return, bag to check. Bleary-eyed morning hugs and off she goes. Minutes later, a phone call. Her flight is at 7:15, not 8:20. She hadn't looked at her ticket. She doesn't make the flight. This is a trip purchased by a friend and is only for the weekend, and there isn't another flight until tomorrow. She's already turned in her car. She's stewing in line at the ticket counter - mad at herself, disappointed, embarrased to confess. I look for options on-line. Nothing until tomorrow. Then, a bit later, another call: bright, cheery. "Mama! This nice man got me on a flight! I get there at 3!" "Really? And who was this nice man?" "The over-booker!" "The what?"
"The over-booker!"

So, they put her on a full flight and now will bump someone else off for cash. I asked her: "What did you have to do to get him to do that?" But it's a pointless question. She was just Steph. On her way to the Bahamas.

Snippets in the key of life

On a random rant. Full of impressions, sensations, thoughts and ideas, streaming at me from everywhere.

From That Distant Land... "He liked the way the neighborhood gathered into itself on such days. Now and then, in the midst of the more casual conversation, a little trade talk would rouse up over a milk cow or a pocketknife or a saddle or a horse or a mule. Or there would be a j0ke or a story or a bit of news, uprisings of the town's interest in itself that would pass through it and die away like scurries of wind."

A simpler time. A conversation. Innocent and precious, and likely as or more important than the crap that passes for news or "national conversation" today. Makes me nostalgic for something I never really had. But is is community, si?

And from the same book, before I move on, a provacative thought: "If God loves the ones we can't, then finally maybe we can."

Only to ponder, guys.

Cycles of love and loss... most emotionally devastating pair of messages from friends, parents of Rachel, 28, who was a baby with our Colin. Simply must share, because it is so real and so raw and such a body blow.

"10/22

After over 5 weeks in the hospital, Rachel has been home with us since the evening of October 8. It is familiar and more comfortable for her. I wish I could say her coming home is good news in relation to her cancer. It is not...
...We take turns taking care of her at night. Evan took the last 2 nights and I'll be with her tonight...
...On the more positive side, she started another chemo drug last Saturday...
...So how are we holding up? Okay I guess. We have wonderful support from friends, family, work and home health care. It is tough to sit with a child slipping toward death. The best I can do is tell her I love her, put a cold cloth on her head, and do my best to make her comfortable...
...Evan has started reading to her at night sometimes. One of their favorite stories is "Where the Wild Things Are." So he read it to her a couple nights ago.

11/1
Rachel is resting quieter today then yesterday. Her breathing is slower and more steady. The focus of her care now is to keep her comfortable.

Thank you all for your love, prayers, hope and good wishes. It has given us strength."

So while we deal with economic crises, I am reminded yet again about what is important ... about how lucky we are, how it all comes down to stuff that is so very very basic: talk that "rouses up" and passes for excitement in the bucolic pace of simplicity, love for family, grief for loss, all of us just keeping on, keeping on. Extracting meaning and experience at every step.

How we keep all of that right up front within us and make it central to living is a challenge - but one worthy of taking on. It's all down at the core, baby.