Yay!!  The prodigal has been returned.  He has an amazing aptitude for finding kind people who will make the necessary calls to get him home.  His only identification is has rabies tag from our vet.  They called there and we were called from the vet.  We had already let them know he was loose.  Anyway, he is limping and exhausted, but glad to be home.  I don’t think he has a good homing instinct.  He seems to truly get lost and have no idea where to go.  We always go looking for him.  Only once did he come home by himself and that was when he got hit by a car and hurt his back.  I think it happened nearby because we hadn’t yet realized he had gone.  Even with has wayward tendencies, we really love him.  I’m glad the faithless cur is home!

       

Still no dog!  Please pray we find him. He is really an important part of our family!!

Ah, Sunday morning!  The one day of this week that I could guarantee sleeping in. How I looked forward to a lazy morning before church. It was not to be. At 5:30 I was yanked awake by the sound of a screaming chicken. Yes, they can scream if they think they are being killed!  I raced (heart pounding!) to the back door and threw it open. There were two labs chasing the hollering bird.  Our retriever, Juneau, was right at my heels. I jumped out the door yelling “NO” at the dogs and Juneau bounded after me, running and snarling at the intruders. They were unimpressed, and tails began wagging. The next thing I know, our faithless cur is joyfully running off with his new-found friends. Three and a half hours and many miles later, we are still dogless. 

We did discover an early Sunday morning culture of old men sitting in rocking chairs on front porches reading the paper. “Dog, no, I didn’t see a dog.” We also found a few glaze-eyed bikers drinking beer in lawn chairs on the sidewalk in front of their apartment. “No, we ain’t seen your dog.” As the morning wore on, we discovered a large, rundown mobile home park with children throwing ball moss into the street to watch cars smash it.  They all ran off when we tried to ask them. (Never talk to strangers!) Or maybe they were scared they’d get in trouble for the ball moss. We drug ourselves home, tired and are bleary-eyed from a morning that started too early!  I assume our faithless dog is still romping with his chicken-chasing companions!!  Hopefully dog catchers don’t work on Sunday.

The first week of the new school year is almost over. I think things are going to go well this year. I had been a bit apprehensive about it because my way of running the room is pretty different from the teacher they had last year. I allow more liberty in some areas, but I’m also stricter in others. I wasn’t sure if it would work out, but I think it will be fine. I feel closer to this group than I have to some others this early in the year.  I’m excited about the potential that is surfacing already.  Not much else to say, I’m tired, not really used to the early morning schedule yet!

I have neglected my blogging.  Every day this past week has been spent in my classroom preparing for the coming year.  We moved rooms so I had to start over.  I even cleaned out my filing cabinet, something that hadn’t been done in years!  It feels good to start fresh. 

We live in a college town and every fall, 20,000 students invade our town. It is amazing!  We stay in the same place and the town changes around us. The roads suddenly become crowded and restless. The interstate becomes a raceway while we putter down the highway at a mere 70 mph.  Stores are suddenly reminescent of carnival fairways. Excited teenagers (read freshmen) move in packs and exclaim over finding a mirror that just fits the dorm door or about what size microwave is allowed. Sometimes they ask questions like, “What kind of sugar do you get to put in a sugar bowl?” Last night we went to a Mexican food restaurant.  I loved watch the young college kids.  They were noisy, nervous and excited all at once.  They remind me of fledgling birds, not quite steady on their wings, but so ready to fly, breaking free from the nest, but so needing their parents.  We see those birds near our bird feeder. Clumsy-looking redbirds perched on the fence fluttering and begging their parents to feed them, then flying off, testing their independence.

So a new school year has started at our university, and on Tuesday, it will also start for me with a new class of 7th and 8th graders.

A computer keyboard doesn’t do well on the floor even if it is waiting for furniture to be put on top of. It is especially devastating when a big glass of ice water dumps into it. The rest of the computer doesn’t recognize it anymore. It has effectively been shunned!

Cutting and pasting with a mouse really doesn’t work well for instant messaging either.

Sunday we delivered her furniture including a replacement keyboard for the drowned one. It is truly amazing what an engineering student can cram into a very small bedroom.  So sad we didn’t have time to hang our on the eve of her “very last first day of school” as she put it. Well, at least for undergraduate work it is. We had other deliveries to make and a trailer to pick up to move furniture for our oldest son.  We so enjoyed seeing our granddaughters!!  The grow up so quickly! 

Getting home at 1:30  made for a very short night. My husband had a 7:30 commitment to have a crane hoist an air conditioning unit onto the roof of the restaurant he has been finishing out.  We are bound to get to bed earlier tonight than last night, even if it is already pretty late!

Yesterday was the anniversary of my younger brother’s death.  Last summer he collapsed on his way to my sister’s house, only two blocks away under a clump of oak trees. He pulled off the road to call her to say he didn’t feel good.  She was across town when she heard him dropping the phone and gagging.  She frantically called her husband who works nearby and her pastor.  Both began combing the neighborhood. Then she called 911, but what could she say?  My brother is in my neighborhood somewhere, and I think he needs help, fast. When she got there with her son coming home from school, they were loading him into the ambulance.  There was no heartbeat, no breathing.  These attendants were used to reviving even this.  They gave little hope, but were willing to try.  He looked so strong, maybe this time, just maybe.  I got the call at school during class.  “They said they didn’t have a heartbeat, and he wasn’t breathing.” 

She and I had been through emergencies before. Our mother suddenly bleeding internally, us sitting in the waiting room through the night as they pump fluids and blood into her to keep her alive.  Her surgery when she wouldn’t stop bleeding and the doctor was anxious.  We expected another night in the waiting room, some scolding about working in the hot sun without enough water, about taking care of himself.  Then he’d come home, roaring up on his motorcycle, still boisterous and carefree. It wasn’t to be.

I left my class in the care of another teacher and rushed home. I only took time to grab my blood pressure medicine, a book and some knitting to fill the night hours.  I felt strangely calm.  Somewhere inside I knew that disaster could be waiting, but I wasn’t going to meet it ahead of time.  I’d wait until I was sure.

In the hospital I was lead to a conference room where my sister and her husband were sitting.  Then I knew.  No one had to say anything.  “He didn’t make it.” was all she said.  I don’t think it would have made any difference if she had been there when he called.  Those things haunt you though. They did her.

He was a genius at friendships.  His funeral was filled with people who had 40 years of memories. We pulled out pictures of little league kids who were now nearing 50 and still friends.  Several of his pall bearers were in those pictures.  We made collages of his life.  The years he laughed, joked, played, drank, and lived. There were stories of bar brawls and motorcycle trips, of car repairs, camaraderie.  Some were trying to drown this sorrow, too. But love was there, unrefined, unpolished, but infinitely precious.

You are missed, baby brother!

I remember him best in the 6th grade, eleven years old and confident beyond his years. His hazel eyes were clear, looking into yours unflinchingly.  He received praise or criticism without pride or shame.  He was a leader in his peer group, but he lead with the natural grace of a born leader.  In a school of mostly rich kids, his family was of modest means. Even at his early age, he would work with his father to help pay his tuition. In my mind, I called him a prince. Everything about him spoke of nobility.

From his parents I learned that when they prayed at dinner, he prayed for the children who had no food. He earnestly prayed that they would have food to eat. He asked deep questions about why they suffered while he didn’t and why were there wars and dishonest leaders. He never snubbed the younger students as some did, but joked with them and taught them how to shoot baskets. He was an excellent basketball player and we all looked forward to watching him in high school. I think he was universally loved by all.

That summer he moved.  I only heard snippets of information about him.  He was going to a target high school for advanced students. The family had quit going to church. Recently, I learned that he’d quit college and was a bartender.

I would love to look into those deep hazel eyes again and ask, “Where are you?”

Let’s see if this works.  The colored states are states I have visited.  The white ones are yet to be seen by me.

I think I’d like to see Alaska next!

Update on Nick’s injury.  The cut is about 5 inches long with a second cut that is around 2 inches. Fortunately it is mostly a surface cut and didn’t hit any major blood vessels. It’s healing without any problem, and we are grateful!!  The crunch is on in his job.  They are hoping to open the restaurant next week.  Lots of details need to be finished before it opens. Last night we went there at midnight to get a trailer that one contractor had been using.  We ended up helping chip up a cracked floor tile that had been ruined when someone on a ladder dropped a hammer.Well, that won’t be a problem once it is a restaurant and not a construction site!!