Highlights of Life

This morning I got an early morning call from a family member, distressed as they were at Paris, France and without a passport.  From that point in, I was on the net, and on the phone with the loved one, helping them sort through the intricacies of weaving through the beaurocracy of returning back to your own country without a passport.

 Part of the problem was that they didn’t know where they had misplaced their passport.  Was it stolen or lost?  Was it lost on the plane from Hamburg to Paris, or on the shuttle between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 of the airport?  In the midst of all the chaos, I said a prayer to God… “please let them find their passport.  Please let it be lost, and then be found!  Please God let this be resolved easily.”

As I began to become frustrated at the situation, my voice started to rise, and it also woke up my mother.  It was 4 am.  She came into the bedroom, peered in, gave me a quizzical look and then left.  She clearly knew something was up, and I gather that from what little bits of conversation she caught on the phone with me, she probably understood it was related to a lost passport.  Thankfully she had the wisdom to not ask me any questions, as I was upset.

Around 7am today, the passport was found.  Someone had returned it to Terminal 1 of the Charles de Gaulle airport in France.  Hallelujah.  The day was saved.

I also figured I owed my mom an explanation given the comotion of the early morning, and the fact that I had accidentally awoken her with my excited telelphone calls.  She was in the laundry room, sorting laundry at 7am.  I felt a little bad that it was my fault for having awoken her at such a hideous hour on a Saturday morning.

When I let her know it was about a lost passport that was now found, she gave me this rather incredulous look and asked me if I was kidding.  A rather odd response, I thought.  I said, “no, I’m completely serious.”  At which point she quietly said, that she had overheard my conversation on the phone, and had become upset and worried about the lost passport as well.

Instead of questioning me when I was clearly busy, she had instead gone to the living room and prayed to God that the passport would be found.  And for some reason, she felt a quiet reassurance from God that the lost passport would be easily found.  Puzzled by the experience, but also not wanting to overhear any more of my telephone conversation (as she found it unsettling to hear one side of the telephone conversation), she went outside for a walk (at 4 am).

Incredibly really how God truly answered our prayers.  The situation could not have been resolved any better.  Although a credit card was stolen from the passport carry case, thankfully the most important item — the passport was returned to the lost and found.  Praise God.

Really.

But as Murphy’s law would have it, just when I thought a bad day would turn good… my 1 year old IBM thinkpad laptop died on me.  It is not rebooting and it is stuck.  And as my luck would have it, I have a 10 hour flight this upcoming week, of which it includes a 3 hour stop over in an airport — to which I had hoped to entertain myself with my laptop and my newly acquired Boingo account.

Sadly, that will not be the case.  Instead, here I am typing this out on my rather clunky desktop that I have not touched since the arrival of my IBM laptop.  How I always seem to crash the network or computer system is beyond me.

Tomorrow is a busy day.  Life seems so busy, and there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the daytime.

Perhaps it’s part of God’s blessing of honouring one’s parents… but I find that as I get older… and hopefully wiser… and try to honour my parents, I find God in turn takes those moments and blesses everyone involved.

Today we ended up going shopping. Somewhere between returning spoiled watermelons to the supermarket, we ended up at a department store. My mom, has lately taken up using the therapy pool at our local swimming hole. She has pretty terrible arthritis, and thankfully the Community Aquatic Center has a program where they allow people with an MD’s note to use their therapy pool. That’s simply fancy language for the whirlpool.

She’s never learnt to swim, but thankfully, she doesn’t seem to mind using the whirlpool. So even when I’m not around, she has gotten used to going there and exercising in the therapy pool. Unfortunately, it just happened that the last time she was there, she noticed her swimsuits (which are all several years old) have become …er… rather stretchy and large… which is not the greatest thing to be wearing in a whirlpool when you have jets of water streaming out at you. I would think it would be akin to a water ballooning effect. The story she described to me of her last visit to the aquatic center had me doubled over in laughter… but I will refrain from retelling the story online, as I think it’s her story.

Anyways, the local department store we stumbled upon just happened to be having a 50% sale on their swimwear. We grabbed a whole lot of them, and headed to the change room. And as she tried on the swim gear, I noticed that she tended to pull the underpants area quite low. I would then pull them up, thinking the butt area was sagging and not fitting well, until I noticed she would do it again.

Maybe it’s a cultural thing, or an age thing… but the situation just struck us both as being humorous, and we broke out into peals of laughter. And soon enough, it didn’t take much for me to fall into fits of giggles over the swimwear and the situational type of comedy that arose.

However, I do feel quite content, as we walked away with really flattering swim suits for her, and one truly cute swimsuit for me.

It has been a truly productive day, filled with fun… 3 swimsuits, 3 pairs of pants (for my mom), and loads of groceries (including tons of fruits). We’re finally home… and I can only feel content. It’s the kind of contentment that comes from a very productive day of shopping, where you return with bags of essential goods that also look very lovely.

*sigh*

And she won’t have the saggy swimwear in the whirlpool incident again. Mission acomplished.

Between seeing family, doing undone errands, working, and my online course, this past week has been beyond hectic and goes into the realm of absolute business.

It didn’t help that my online course had an exam covering 5 units that needed to be completed by last night.  2.5 hours later, I finished the exam, exhausted and spent.  I was a little disappointed that I did not get the mark I wanted for the exam, but it is to be expected given the lack of time I’ve spent on the course.  Thankfully, I’ve gotten high marks on the individual tests for each of the units, and hopefully that will pull up the mark.

Should learn to stop cramming, and make more of an effort to truly learn the stuff. 

Today seems to be my day off in a long time… and all I can do is simply exhale and rest.

There is that very long to-do list I made on the plane.  But maybe for just today… I’ll take it easy.

So my mom and I made our very 1st batch of pesto sauce, using her home grown basil from her garden.

Basically the recipe followed was:

2 cups of basil

1 cup of pine nuts

4 cloves of garlic

1 & 1/2 cups of romano cheese (as she hates parmesan cheese)

1 & 1/2 cups of virgin olive oil

dash of salt and pepper to taste

I used the blender & food processor and she used the old fashioned electric grater/grinder (that can grind meat into ground beef) that she had seen an italian use to make pesto sauce.

Can’t wait to taste the pesto the next time I make spaghetti.

In total, I believe we used about 6 cups of packed basil. Unbelieveable really how much a garden can yield.

I used to get so disappointed whenever I bought pesto sauce from stores, to find it hardly tasted of basil. As I was searching the web, I realized, people can substitute parsley for basil, and walnuts for pine nuts. That might explain why the store bought stuff tasted so poorly.

Nothing like homemade fresh pesto sauce to eat with noodles or rice. Mmmm mmm!

Last night I got about 2 hours of sleep.   I was up late, packing and getting ready for today.  Whenever I am leaving on a trip, I have this tremendous compulsion to make sure everything is neat, tidy and orderly before I go.

Today basically consisted of me waking up at the crack of dawn, and going to the airport and  going through the regular hoop-la of security, and checking in, etc etc.

It’s very strange, but I find that although I have yet to achieve “elite status” on the airline, I tend to get these seats that are quite close to the front, and with the middle seat (next to me) always empty.  Even though the plane was quite fully packed, I happened to be sitting in row 14D (aisle and 3 rows behind 1st class), with the seat next to me quite empty.  I can’t help but wonder if perhaps the airline has flagged me as being a frequent flyer?

No complaints on my end though.  I enjoy the extra space next to me… although I do feel rather sorry the people who happened to be squished all next to each other.  But I guess not sorry enough to give up my seat for theirs.

It was a comfortable flight, and I think I pretty much slept the entire flight here.  My body is aching with fatigue, and I can tell I’m tired, as my fingers are all bloated and swollen, indicating that my body is bloated as well.

soooo tired.

Today after church, instead of doing my coursework as I dutifully should do…. I procrastinated, and instead ended up going to the beach.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day outside.  Sunny and hot, there was not a cloud in the sky.  We donned our beach clothes, and about 3 hours later we ended up on the beach.  I actually deluded myself into thinking that I could listen to my lectures and read my articles while sunning on the the beach.  Ha.

When we arrived, the waves literally took my breath away.  Nothing like seeing the force of nature of huge waves crashing onto the shore to make you realize how tiny and puny you are in power and stature to the nature God created around you.

As we breathed in the fresh salt air, full of brininess, and heard the waves crashing on the shore…. we just soaked in just resting this afternoon.  It felt absolutely good.

Unfortunately, I have yet to finish my work.  Hopefully in the next 2 hours, I’ll get it all done.  No regrets though.

I mean the US does have it flaws… but I love the optimism and the opportunity that is found in this incredibly large, vast, and diverse country. The mix of people, the ample supply of opportunities to succeed and achieve whatever incredibly large dream you desire…. is incredible.

A friend of mine on his facebook account, has the quote “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” And living in a country such as the U.S.A, where you come across ample moments of opportunities on a daily basis…. living out that saying is truly possible.

I guess it gives rise to the question of what we can do as Christians, living in such a wealthy country. How do we use our wealth, knowledge and skill set that God has given us to glorify Him? Also, to be able to not take our God given opportunities with a sense of entitlement, but rather a sense of awe, and thankfulness. To know what “talents” God has given us, and to know how to invest them for His kingdom purposes. To know how to tithe, and give with generosity.

To know how to give with wisdom, and not foolishly throw away money to whomever comes along and demands it. To know how to invest in the long term for God.

These are some of the things that have become more concrete to me, as I live out here in one of the wealthiest parts of the world. And in knowing the extent of God’s blessing over my life, makes me thankful, but also more fully aware that I need to give it back as a blessing unto others. To not hold tight and hide it away… but to give.