Lift Up Your Hearts!

Florida has been experiencing unseasonably warm weather recently, though here it is not as welcome as the 60 - 70 degree temperatures in the Northeast has been seeing. I'm not ready for shorts and temperatures in the 80's yet, and neither are our plants, which must have been dreaming of an early summer this week.

What a change this morning! Suddenly the air pouring through my open office window has a welcome chill, driving off the computer-generated warmth. Time to switch back to long pants, maybe even break out some soup and our Christmas hot chocolate. Alas that the cooler weather that brings blessing to us brings hardship to more northern climes!

I'm not unmindful that the new temperatures that are wonderfully cool to us are the same ones that were wonderfully warm to our loved ones just yesterday.

Lime Daley is the name of Jon Daley's Internet hosting and embedded hardware and software systems company. It is also the name Porter gave to a great drink Jon and Heather invented. For the curious, here is the recipe for a Lime Daley:

ice to taste
3 tablespoons lime juice
2 drops Boyajian lime oil
1 twelve-ounce bottle Blenheim “Old #3” (red cap) ginger ale

Put ice in a tall glass. Add lime juice and lime oil. Slowly pour in Blenheim. Stir well. Be prepared for the strongest kick a non-alcoholic drink can have. (To remember the proportions, think “3, 2, 1, blastoff!” It’s appropriate.)

(I predict LimeDaley.com will be a powerful business.)

Many churches have early evening "family services" on Christmas Eve, so that young children don't have to stay up for "Midnight Mass." That's a mistake, I think. Children who stay up past midnight are less likely to awaken before the dawn on Christmas Day.

Not that I minded the soft, "Merry Christmas, Aunt Linda," even at 6:30 a.m. The whole family congregated in the family room, where we opened our stockings. This was followed by the joyful ending of Jotham's Journey, with all five candles of the Advent wreath alight. Some have faulted the book for mixing a fictional tale with Bible truths, but—as with all good historical fiction—this story returns the shining wonder to events tarnished by distance and sanctimonious repetition.

After breakfast we exchanged gifts by the Christmas tree. Of course the boys eagerly sought out the gifts with their names on them, but it was encouraging to see them still more eager for others to open the gifts (many handmade) from them.

In the quiet of the afternoon, between games and books and Lego creations, we listened to a new CD, the American Boy Choir's Carol. Their rendition of Donald Fraser's This Christmastide (Jessye's Carol) transported me to a time in my life where I had caught a glimpse of heaven amid the sin-stained realities of this world. It was an experience of music, worship, and church body life that I now know was a rare and brief gift. The experience is gone, but the gift remains.

'Tis the final day of Advent, and family is gathered around. Tonight we hear the penultimate story from Jotham's Journey, which we have been reading each night while the Advent candles are lit. Soon we will travel to church, bracketing our worship with fondue: cheese before and chocolate after. A white Christmas is unlikely, for the snow has been washed away by yesterday's rain. Perhaps we will have some Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music instead, which is almost as good.

The Season of Waiting is almost over. It is hard to observe Advent in our culture, where "Christmas" begins in October and ends about noon on December 25, just as the Christmas Season is beginning. But our small attempts have succeeded in shutting out some of the clamor, and drawing our eyes to greater wonders.

Billy, age five, is greatly excited. He hung his stocking from the mantel, and moved the large airplane cockpit control panel toy from in front of the fireplace, so that Santa will find no obstruction tonight. Then he solemnly declared to his cousin, "It wouldn't matter if Santa doesn't come, because the important thing about Christmas is Jesus' birth."

One year ago today we were basking in the sun of an unusually warm November day, and in the healing joy of the birth of a beautiful, healthy baby boy. This has truly been a Year of Thanksgiving.

I know this will not impress you Northerners, but I'll tell the story anyway. When I jumped into the pool today, I thought that the water was a tad on the chilly side. After doing my 10 warm-up lengths, I checked the thermometer: 67 degrees, a drop of six degrees since Friday. It was actually quite pleasant, after a lap or two, though I'm sure it's colder than the Maggie P. in summer. Probably not colder than Lake Bomoseen, however. My goal is to keep swimming until Thanksgiving. This time it was easy, as I had no idea before I stepped in how cold the water was. The real test of my determination will be the next time I venture in.

We're watching the lunar eclipse. The first time I saw that beautiful phenomenon, my father awakened me in the early hours of the morning, and we drove to a place where we could see the moon well. I was cold and sleepy. But it was worth it: to see the moon, and to have that special time with my dad.

Tonight we have it easy. We step out of our front door into the warm Florida night, and there is the disappearing moon, clear and lovely and perfectly framed. It reminds me of watching space shuttle launches, which we also see from our front yard. Except that this time I have no lingering fears that the beauty will splinter and fall as I watch.

Being originally a New Englander, Porter has been a Boston Red Sox fan since before he learned that those things he put on under his shoes were actually spelled s-o-c-k-s. He loves the team so much that he usually refuses to watch them play. (We lived near Boston for nearly two years, and never went to Fenway Park.) Demonstrating that paganism can still lurk in the deep recesses of a Christian's life, he is (or pretends to be) superstitious enough to believe he can jinx them just by watching. And I must admit that the anecdotal evidence is pretty strong. He has the opposite effect on the Yankees, too. During the first round of the playoffs this year, he watched seven seconds of a Yankees-Twins game, with Minnesota well ahead—just in time to see Rubin Sierra hit a three-run homer to tie the game, which the Yankees went on to win. Chastened, he watched not one second of the Boston-New York playoffs.

The Boston Red Sox are in the World Series! Will he let his intellectual knowledge that the universe is not run in such a way that his viewing habits can really affect the outcome of a baseball game overcome his gut feelings? Not tonight, anyway: we have a concert to go to.

I'm rooting for the Sox, too. How can you pass up a personal connection? Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek was in Porter's Sunday school class, and he graduated from our own Lake Brantley High School.

With the nonchalance of season passholders, we spent the day at EPCOT’s International Food and Wine Festival. The park was not crowded by their standards, but it was by ours; we prefer to go when time spent waiting in line is minimal. Today, however, we found ourselves in line again, and again, and again…each time at a small booth with a long queue, that featured a different country’s food and drink. Portions were appetizer-sized, and prices were Disney-sized, but the idea was great. If the portions had been any larger, we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy so many tastes. It helps to have a partner in this situation: you wait in this line, I’ll wait in that one, then we’ll meet and share the food. It was a strategy that worked well.

Waiting in line was a social event, too. Floridians seem to have made an easy transition from exchanging hurricane preparation tips while in line at Home Depot, to exchanging food recommendations while waiting at EPCOT.

The food itself was variable. Between us, we experienced

• New Zealand: Green Lip Mussels (so-so; the preparation was good, but the mussels themselves were not, and certainly not up to the quality of the dish of the same name we enjoyed in Auckland.
• Ireland: Guiness Stew (a rather ordinary beef stew, but the flavor was quite good, and somehow comforting)
• Scandinavia: Cold Poached Salmon (one of the best, with a delicious lemon cream sauce)
• China: Dan Dan Noodles (all right, but bland); Chicken Sha Cha with Peanut Sauce (almost tasteless; were there any peanuts in the sauce at all?); Akadama Plum Wine (good, made the food more interesting)
• South Africa: Durban Spiced Chicken (wonderful! best dish of the day; lots of flavor)
• Italy (regular pavilion, not a Festival booth): tiramisu and chocolate mousse (both good, but the mousse triumphed)
• New England: free taste of Vermont Cabot sharp cheddar cheese (just about worth the price, not sharp at all)
• France: Escargot Provencal (almost as good as the Durban Spiced Chicken), Crêpe au Fromage et Jambon (not bad but nothing special)
• Poland: Nalewka Babuni Cherry Wine (recommended to us by someone who obviously never had to take cherry-flavored cough syrup as a child)
• Canada: Cheddar Cheese Soup (delicious, at least in a small portion, with detectable wine, bacon, and onion flavors in addition to the cheese)

Having run out of meals and appetite, we saved some other interesting pavilions (Southeast Asia, India, Morocco, and more) for another trip. Next time we’ll know to sign up early for the Twinings tea tasting.

We went to a high school football game tonight. It was a great night for it, cool enough for long pants and a sweatshirt, our first cool weather in months. We actually went to see the halftime show, which I understand is pretty good despite the efforts of four hurricanes to thwart practice. But there was no halftime show: the Marching Patriot Band played their music from the stands. Why? I'm not sure, except that it's technically Fall Break, and a significant portion of the band was elsewhere. (Why the sports teams, band, cheerleaders, and associated people should be deprived of their Fall Break time is another issue.) Even so, it sounded pretty good. Too bad those people at the gate thought we paid our $12 to see the football team.

Ah, well, it was a fun night anyway. We had friends to talk with during the first half, and the second half had several exciting plays, exciting even to me, whose interest in football is something less than one of those mathematical epsilons.... Besides, there's nothing quite like a Band Booster hamburger.

This is the first year there is no one in the band who was there when we were involved. Some siblings, though. And they still play the same songs.

I have been working on a project that involves gluing two sheets of cardstock together, then laminating the result with clear contact paper. It's a bit of work, but seemed more reasonable than purchasing a $200 laminating machine.

Maybe not. I had been pleased with the results, but noticed that the rubber cement seal was coming apart in some places. No problem, I thought, I'll just slip in a little extra rubber cement. That appeared to be a fine solution, until I returned to my work an hour later and discovered that the solvent from the rubber cement had apparently penetrated the card stock and dissolved the adhesive on the contact paper, leaving a mess of wrinkles and bubbles. :(

Time to figure out Plan B.

No Christian can rule out the possibility that he may be called upon to be a martyr. Be that as it may, I don't believe any of us is called to be a masochist.

In today's sermon we learned that God intends worship to be—among other things—fun. I'm not quarrelling with that, only mentioning it to make the point that I do not, in general, consider pain to be fun.

At the service we usually attend this is rarely a problem, but today we went to the later service because it was Porter's turn to close up afterwards. Alas, I had forgotten to bring the earplugs that are of necessity my nearly constant companions these days. I survived until the offertory, during which I observed an interesting psychological phenomenon. At first I felt claustrophobic, as I was trapped in the middle of the pew, bombarded with increasingly painful sound. Then I started to shut down, closing off as much as possible all awareness of the world around me. It almost worked—until I decided that that wasn't a very sane thing to do, and was certainly no way to worship. At that point, I stopped caring what other people thought, and simply put my hands over my ears until the song was done. Then I was safe until Communion, after which I was conveniently able to slip outside until the drums and guitars ceased.

I will certainly be glad when Porter's locking-up duties are over, and we can go back to the "old folks' service." It used to be the elderly who were hardest of hearing, but these days I find that the volume of a church service tends to be inversely proportional to the average age of the congregation.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004. 1:00 p.m.  The power is still on, and we are all happy about that. Porter is currently up on the roof, making repairs, and is glad that the pool is looking better this morning. Jonathan, Heather and I have a date to see some friends this afternoon, but we hope to get in some yardwork and a swim, too. Jonathan is not yet very helpful with the yardwork, but makes up for it by being incredibly cute as he tries to handle the rake. And he really enjoys the swimming part afterwards.

9:15 p.m. We didn’t get our swim in. We were just finishing in the front yard when Porter came home. Since we had discovered that we were cooler working outside than we had been sitting inside, Porter decided it was time to take the rest of the plywood down so we could open the windows. During the process Jonathan discovered a stream of water in the gutter and got his shoes soaking wet. Leaving him (with his mother watching, of course) to splash and play in his naked glory, I took his shoes in to clean them up. While I was inside, the phone rang. The cordless phone rang. Wait a minute...the cordless phone doesn’t work unless we have POWER! Sure enough, the power was on; our best guess was that it came on around 6:30. Twenty-nine and a half hours without power this time. We welcomed the return of light and A/C and computing power with 100% gratitude, but also with the usual small percentage of wistfulness, as there is something magical about being without electricity. Hot, and dark, and sometimes frustrating, but also, in a way, fun. Not that I’m in any hurry for more of that fun for a while!

Porter made a trip to Home Depot tonight, as we lost enough shingles this time to require some temporary roof repair. I’m glad the store was open; when Heather and I went out, we found most stores closed, including two of our three grocery stores, and most gas stations.

Jon made it safely home. In fact, his was the call that let us know the power was back.

Jonathan is really happy to have the air conditioning back on; he was one hot and sweaty kid! While the power was off, he’d kept staring at the lights with a puzzled look, as if he couldn’t understand why we didn’t turn them on. When the power came back on, he still focused on the lights; this time with a big smile.

Time for a shower and a night’s sleep. Good night, all!

Monday, September 27, 2004. 4:30 p.m. I apologize for the long delay between updates. Just after 1:00 yesterday afternoon, as the storm was nearly over, we lost power. In fact, we are still without power, making it the longest outage for us of the three hurricanes. Porter is working from a friend’s house, the friend having both power and high-speed connection to share.

The airport opened at noon today, and we took Jon to the airport where we assume he had no trouble catching his flight, though we haven’t heard yet. We chose to take the longer, but mostly-expressway route, as uncontrolled intersections made the other roads difficult to travel. With each hurricane we get better, however: many of the important intersections had working lights, powered by generators.

Jonathan is still enjoying himself, though he is anxious for the pool to be open again. I put some chlorine in, and when it has had a chance to dissipate we may indulge. It looks a little gross, with pump and filter not working, but it should be safe and cool. When they ask Jonathan what he thinks of Florida, he’s going to say, “The people are nice, but it sure is hot and dark there.”

I’m not sure when my next update will be. We’re fine, but if you need to get in touch with us, phone is more reliable at this point than e-mail.

We’re off to do some yardwork. It will make the pool and/or cold shower feel that much better, and help justify all the really soft ice cream we have to eat.