Health, housing, and Halloween

Earlier this month Mom started physical therapy – five or six weeks of two or three a week – PT that turned out to be a little funky, Penny-style, and that she’s not sure about it. But I have encouraged Mom to try this. Perhaps she’ll try to a different PT if this doesn’t work out. While she does this PT, she is not doing exercises at home or tai chi. Tuesday evening – after stalling for a couple of weeks – with aid from a fellow church member and retired nurse – and after months of negotiating with the drug company and her insurance company – Mom tried self-injecting herself with a relatively new drug that it supposed to combat osteoporosis and start to build back her bones, including bones near her hip that may be dangerously depleted. Good for you, Mom, for trying out PT and the shot.

While Mom is busy working with her health, Stephanie’s Mom, Nancy, is supervising the completion of a major home renovation. She has posted pictures on Facebook of helping knock down a wall and some of her new kitchen appliances. Much of Nancy and Bob’s home’s first floor will be quite different.

Stephanie has caught the bug too – after I started the ball rolling Saturday – searching the Internet and peppering her colleagues and students with questions about New Albany real estate. I’m more skeptical.

Speaking of bugs and health, the sister of one of Stephanie’s students – who herself seemed sick last week – has come down with H1N1 flu. I bet it’s only a matter of time before Stephanie brings it home to Vincent and me. Cold and allergies have dogged Stephanie and Vincent for several weeks as it is. Stephanie has missed church and Children’s Fellowship for both of the past two Sundays, partly because of feeling crappy. Vincent always has smoker’s cough – but has been more grumpy – more like his old self – as he – with urging from Jessi – has been – in fits and starts – trying to quit smoking and is so going through nicotine withdrawal. We’ve had more arguments than usual.

I’ve been trying to floss and maintain my dermatological routine – with a bath every night and some lotion. I went to the dermatologist – way out – last week – and switched lotions.

Stephanie and I were both together at a Weight Watchers meeting for the first time in several weeks after we both try to lose some weight.

After several weeks off Vincent was back to his weekly counseling sessions – now on Saturdays – last week. He’s back to the psychiatrist next week. Vincent is very enamored with making money, but we’ve been trying to push him to do school work too, especially since he’s close to finishing one class and if he finished it he could go in and get out of a class the school enrolled him that he’s taken before and enroll to get credit for working. He’s applied for some other jobs – that we’re now thinking he shouldn’t pursue until he finishes his two classes – and his current job (at Halloween Express in the Mall at St. Matthews - pictured - from above - above) – if he makes it through – he’s toyed with quitting, I think, since after the store actually opened it’s gotten boring – although he likes some of the people he works with – is slated to end after Halloween.

-- Perry

Busy weekend

While Vincent Friday and Saturday helped celebrate Jessi's 16th birthday, Stephanie also had a busy weekend. Friday night we had dinner at a downtown Middle Eastern restaurant and then went to a small theater within the Kentucky Center for the Arts complex to watch "Anne of the Thousand Days" with our friend Faith in it (overlapping the content of the "Other Boleyn Girl" movie with Scarlett Johansen and Natalie Portman we saw a couple of years ago). The fact that you knew what was going to happen (and it wasn't good) made this a little less fun in some ways. But the Henry VIII actor - and Faith and her colleagues - were all good. Saturday morning I slept in to 10 a.m. for the first time in months. But at 1 p.m. I was back in New Albany (IN) for the first time in a month going door to door seeking support (and now phone calls to people in Congress) for health care reform. The list was winnowed more, so that we got almost no strong opponents. Lots of not at homes, one stauching (Hilary) Clinton Democrat, and several pro-health care reform people. 2/3 of the way into the homes I turned down a block - which turned out to be about four blocks from Stephanie's school - and thought to myself: boy - this is a cute block. And half way down this block I knocked on the door of a house that was for sale (pictured below) - and the people had already moved, it turns out. (The later part of the block is pictured far below).

We're pretty happy as renters in St. Matthews. But real estate is much cheaper in Southern Indiana and every once in a while we muse not about buying our rental house in St. Matthews but a cheaper house in Southern Indiana. The fact that this was such a cute block probably meant the house would be too expensive. Stephanie finally decided that - despite the for sale sign - the house may be sold. But Stephanie got going on real estate Web sites and sat me to a house located on a hill above town that was too big and too old, but still cute (pictured below).

Later Saturday afternoon - in between dropping off a "Happy birthday" card to Jessi (where Vincent and his former classmate Sam were visiting for a birthday party) - we stopped by the Fish Hut - where our friend John was playing drums and singing in his band Cadillac Shack - at an outdoor Kosair children's cancer prevention fund-raiser. We ate fish, listened to music, and talked with John's wife Libby, their kids, and - when they were on break - to John and his bandmates. Pictured below is the band playing.

Below Stephanie laughs.

Libby smiles.

Below the guitarist and (mostly) lead singer talks as John looks on.

Minutes later - after stopping to see our church friend Anita in the hospital - we were in our seats at the Little Colonel playhouse watching another church friend, Brad, and castmates in a fabulous - and, often, funny - version of "On Golden Pond," also an Oscar-winning Henry Fonda-Katharine Hepburn-Jane Fonda movie that I've never seen (pictured below).

Sunday morning I was back in our bilingual Sunday school class talking about church unity and Carlos' conversation the previous day with Pastor Gerardo, a leader in the Guatemalan presbytery we're partners with.

Sarah also participated (below).

After service, a church potluck and program I'd done a little to help put together that helped garner canned tuna for the United Crescent Hill Ministries and featured a half-an-hour CBS program on church unity in Louisville - including as exemplified in this ministry - and featured the wonderful singing of Jessi's father, Lewis. Pictured below is the director, Sue.

Last Sunday I debuted as a teammate/assistant to Rebecca, our new student intern who is helping lead Children's Fellowship, recently moved from Monday late afternoon to Sunday afternoon upset youth group. Once a month we will all meet together for pizza and games Family night - complete with others from the church. Rebecca and my activities for the smaller kids disintegrated a bit. But I ended up helping lead a four square tournament (a la our Gainesville Palm View Estates driveway, Buccholz High School 9th grade summer school PE class with Parliament/Funkadelic music), and Stephanie sometimes at recess. Irene and Emily (far ends, below) were quick learners. Ariana, who's just graduated to youth group, and Vincent - who accompanied me and joined us after doing Dance Dance Revolution - had played before. Molly and Dave (not pictured) also played.

Stephanie - cold and with a sore throat - stayed home (for the second Sunday in a row - last weekend Stephanie stayed home all weekend. The busy Friday and Saturday this weekend might have been too much for her.)

-- Perry

Birthday week events

While my wife and father celebrated their birthdays week, I was involved in a few events. Tuesday at lunch I joined a pro-single payer health care reform protest - in front of the Humana insurance company headquarters (whose missive to Medicare enrollees triggered the Obama administration "gag order," which starred as a villain in Michael Moore's "Sicko," whom several people at work do or have worked for, and whose Toastmasters clubs we've worked with) - led by the Mad as Hell Doctor, who were driving their bus (far below) from Oregon. I missed the nighttime 2nd Street bridge walk that made even more of the TV news.

Tuesday I also picked a sign I'd ordered for the joint Crescent Hill-James Lees-Covenant Community English as a foreign language and Wednesday morning planted it in the front yard of the James Lees-Covenant church property.

This week U.S. Congregational Life Survey co-lead research Cynthia W. was at our office and this week the grant treated us to lunch. We had salad and sandwiches - and then cookies and ice cream. Below are Cynthia, Christy, and Becki.

Ida and Gail (below) dipped in too.

So did Jack and Joelle (below).

Cynthia (again, below) came up with an elaborate activity in honor of Jack's birthday, which we'll celebrate next week (when Cynthia will be back home in the Albany (NY) area). She blindfolded Jack and asked him to get the flavors of the top five-selling Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavors, which she fed him - and then ask him to guess the top seller too. Jack wasn't that familiar with Ben and Jerry's jargon, and so we let him describe them. You'll have to ask me if you want to know his quip at the end of it all . . .

Thursday night a joint event at my church that I'd help set up between the Mid-KY Presbytery's multicultural ministries team (that I'm part of) and the presbytery's Latino and African American commissions occurred. I was the MC but sat at a table and had a small group discussion with Betty Meadows (the general presbyter and a member of our team) and Norma (another team members) (below).

Rodger and Ann (below) - from the African American and Latino commissions, respectively - were also at our table.

-- Perry

Stephanie's birthday

Thank you everyone for the birthday messages. It was a wonderful evening seeing a Titanic IMAX documentary, Joe's Crab Shack dinner (above), and a romantic walk along the Ohio River waterfront before heading home to (opening presents and) Graeter's banana split ice cream pie (far below). (Sorry - no picture or video yet of Stephanie dancing in the hula skirt at Joe's - Perry).

-- Stephanie

Guatemala mission weekend

For several months we've been planning for the big Guatemala mission weekend this past weekend at church. (You might recall that we met at our house a couple of weeks ago to plan.) Up first was an unusual Saturday morning fast and prayer vigil, that coincided with Day 2 of the annual meeting of a partner presbytery in Guatemala. Ana (above left) pushed for a labyrinth-style vigil - more or less like the stations of the cross in Catholic churches. So we constructed 13 stations, each with a semi-framed, captioned picture (I took and constructed each), a lit candle, and some Guatemalan artifact - most to represent the 10 churches of the presbytery. We also put up ribbon to help guide people through the labyrinth, as they wound their way through the sanctuary. Ana, Andrea (also above), and I met a month ago to plan this and I stayed in the Westerville Kinko's until 10:30 p.m. Saturday night after Aunt Mildred's memorial service to construct the framed pictures. Friday night Ana, Andrea, Ada, Doug, Lowell met to actually construct the labyrinth and set up for the vigil, to close with a very short prayer and song service (the whole thing was to run from 8 a.m. to 12 noon). Below is one of the signs that Andrea built to point people in the right direction, and further below is Ana (in the dark) with the map of the labyrinth that she drew.

About 16 people showed up for the fast, including Soni who stayed there the whole four hours and Lowell and me who came close. Some of the people who had been to Guatemala but were not involved heavily in the set up (Pastor Jane, Soni, Eva, maybe Lowell) seemed to enjoy this the most (since they weren't stressed out about set-up). The Guatemalan Presbyterians hold a lot of these, and they were excited to hear that we might hold one to coincide with their presbytery meeting - and so we promised to do so when we met with their presbytery leaders on Monday, March 29. After the brief service, we broke our fast and about 10 of us went out to eat at the relatively nearby Havana Rumba Cuban restaurant. Hannington - our New Albany friend in the midst of serious immigration problems - and Soni (below) were at the lunch.

So were (left to right) Ana, Ginny, Kay, Jeff, and Nora, among others.

The next morning I was up bright and early for the first fall Sunday school class of the bilingual Spanish-English Sunday school class led by Carlos (far left), Ana's father, which Sunday included Sarah and Soni. We talked - this Sunday, more in English - about the Spanish-language "What is ecumenism?" piece we had sent to our partners in Guatemala several weeks previously.

Later Sunday morning Delia Leal, who will tour the United States this next month as a Presbyterian "international peacemaker," was the guest preacher in our Sunday morning service. She had written a relatively abstract sermon about peace, but she complied with Ellen's request (Ellen translated into English for her) and inserted the story of how she and her family forgave the people who killed two of her brothers during the civil war. Below Pastor Leal - one of Guatemala's few female pastors, at a Nazarene church - greeted Crescent Hill folks (here - Larry Ann) while Ellen (face obscured) stands to her left. It is Ellen who landed us Pastor Leal and Dennis Smith, who arrived later.

After church Lowell (left) and I were among half a dozen Crescent Hill folks who joined more people from two nearby Presbyterian churches who brainstormed over Chinese buffet lunch about how to do outreach with nearby Spanish-speaking folks about English as a foreign language classes we're setting up. Phil (below right - pastor of one of the other churches) and I ended up actually knocking on some doors at a couple of nearby apartment complexes. Invited in to talk with one family, it turns out Phil knew one of the family members, most Spanish-speaking people in the neighborhood have moved to a different complex on the other side of Clifton Heights, nearer to Pastor Jane's house, and that most of these folks are in fact from Guatemala.

Monday the final Guatemala Mission Weekend shoe dropped, when longtime Presbyterian mision worker in Guatemala, Dennis Smith, arrived in Louisville. We took him to the Vietnam Kitchen restaurant near the airport - near where Stephanie used to teach English - and then home, where he was to stay with us two nights before preparing to leave for a month - with some 50 or so other international peacemakers and misison workers (including Leal) - talking with Presbyterians around the country (the Misison Challenge). Smith was a good guest. He showed us pictures of his family and in fact talked with them by Skype throuugh his laptop, which he could use to the Internet because of the router Stephanie got me for Christmas and installed subsequently. Except for going out to lunch and dinner, Smith hung out at our house Monday, but then I took him and his luggage into the office Tuesday.

A week or so earlier, Stephanie and I had found the Mexican bakery on Preston Highway where we usually order tres leches (three milks) Mexican cakes, usually huge ones, as a lure for Dennis Smith's talk. But when I got out there, after a short while it was clear that they hadn't really even started the cake. I went over for a quick lunch at Subway, but eventually a whole hour elapsed - although I did get to watch them make some of the cake - which included pineapples. I missed a lot of work in this way. Eventually I nabbed the cake and refrigerated it at work (I had walked the dog at home on the way to the bakery) before bringing it to set up the talk. Dennis Smith's talk was good (and in the question and answer period he even talked about the return of President Zelaya to Honduras, which had just happened earlier that day), and I was pleased with myself by asking Delia Leal to close us with prayer (her having listened patiently to his talk with only some translation into Spanish - quietly for her. About 18 people had showed - including one from another church and a couple of Crescent Hill people we don't usually see at these events. I had e-mailed Univeristy of Louisiville people, and gotten a notice in the newspaper. Below is the cake - with the Guatemalan flag on it - which Delia Leal appreciated, but I let this slow down us cutting it and stalling the start of the event a little. We got home about 9 p.m., I took Dennis Smith to work th enext morning at 8 a.m., and then Guatemala mission weekend was essentially over. We still have to call our partners to find out if they did indeed add an 11th church, when Presbyterian families moved into their area from another part of the country.

-- Perry

Preparing and gathering

We do hard work and house work steadily when we can. But people coming over produce more straightening and cleaning and mowing blitzes. Last month Stephanie volunteered for us to host the church's Guatemala mission task force on a Saturday morning in house - even though we've never had that many adults over. Last weekend Stephanie weeded and pruned and planted in the yard. During the week I processed clutter, dusted most of the first floor, vacummed most of the house, and then - from 8-10 p.m. Thursday - mowed both yards and edged the sidewalk in the dark. In the interim we tried to get some replacement vacuum cleaner parts and Stephanie tried hard to get us to buy a new dining room table and chairs and new patio furniture. Pictured above and below is Stephanie taking a water break while she weeded the back yard and swept the patio. Frisco hung out with Stephanie in the back yard (below) and the front yard.

Stephanie labeled that tree behind her (below) a weed when we first moved to our St. Matthews house four years ago - and within months tried to wack it down - but now it's huge and supplies shade to the patio area and some of the house (though it's also grown too close to the roof in places, she's pointed out).

Stephanie also turned her attention to the front yard, weed wacking and sweeping the driveway of those acorns several times (more still came down). Later this fall it will be the berries that we step on and trample into the house (since we often don't take our shoes off until we've gotten into the living room - no entry way).

My predecessor gave her a fig twig some 14 years ago - which reminded them of his home in the Middle East (my family and I also had one at our main Gainesville house) - and "Figgy" has gone with us - in increasingly larger pots - upstairs to my attic apartment at Grandma and Grandpa's in Westerville and then to Florida, Minnesota, Florida again, and finally Kentuckiana. Sometime rough treatment or bad weather (it goes outside in the winter and year-round in Florida) has almost killed - but it always rebounds - Phoenix-like. As part of the run-up to the Guatemala gathering, Stephanie finally repotted "Figgy" - working in our front porch.

Notice Stephanie "Coffee Table" T-shirt from one of our favorite Columbus (OH) hang-outs from back in the 1990s - around the time of Figgy's birth.

And then - with water and some new soil - Figgy was transformed.

Stephanie was back in the back yard watering the mums in pots on the back porch.

Frisco watched.

Ten days later - after lots more cleaning and also some cooking by Stephanie - Frisco was also on hand when we welcomed some half a dozen people to our house for the Guatemala gathering. No one really asked for a house tour - we didn't even get to show off our Florida room - which looks must better than it did several years ago. (Plus we had a stopped up first floor bathroom sink, which was embarrassing - and the cable guy came to fix Vincent's phone while we met.) But Carlos, Nora, and Lara had been over for dinner a couple of years ago and since then Stephanie stripped and painted - and transformed the living room/dining room - plus hung pictures - and they admired/marveled this (including the picture in Guatemala and other Guatemala touches). Pastor Jane and Ellen (below) sat in front of the turtle contraption and the fireplace/mantle.

(Below) Martha and Stephanie also sat in front of the TV stand (with its plant on top and lots of natural light).

Nora, Ana, and Carlos (with the cell phone on which we talked to Pastor Gerardo in El Estor during the gathering) sat on our two-year-old yellow sofa, with the front window, bookshelf, and coffee table (with its coffee table cover from Guatemala - and all Louisville purchases by Stephanie - except for the window).

A lot of work - but our house and yard (not sure anyone noticed the yard at all) did - and do - look pretty darn great. Good job, Stephanie!

-- Perry