The Magic Circle

If you’re lucky like me, you have a couple or a group or even a couple of groups of the best friends you’ll ever meet. People you will always belong to, always share with, who will always be family, blood not withstanding. Amazing people who know you well and STILL both like and love you. I have this, and I am blessed.

When you’ve found friends like this, some people might question the wisdom of leaving them behind like I’ve done. These people aren’t really in my circle. My close friends know and understand, or at least accept and let me go my own ways. Sometimes that’s the best anyone can do with me, and it’s encouraging, humbling, and inexpressibly comforting to know that there are people willing to set me free and always take me back.

Being on my own has been easy enough so far because of the interwebs, and because I don’t mind eating at a restaurant or going to a movie or museum on my own. In fact, I often enjoy it as a treat to myself. That’s called being an introvert, I imagine. All the same, like many good things, quality alone time can become burdensome when it’s the only option, so I’m doing my best to make new friends. You can never have too many friends, or too many circles.

Meeting people isn’t so hard. Making good friends isn’t so easy. Joining a new circle… I’m finding that difficult indeed.

I’ve always wanted to add amazing new people I meet to my amazing circle of friends. Now I really need to find someone like that, who tries to push and expand and share their circles with new people. And I need to be someone that people want to share their circles with! I’m doing things like joining the band and taking dance lessons to meet people who have similar interests and regular times for coming together. I may not get collected into a circle that way, but at least it’s time I spend socializing with others and improving my chances.

When all is said and done, though, I’ve only been in New Orleans a little over two months. Circles as wonderful as the ones I have can take years to find/build/grow. I will try to walk softly. I will try to move forward steadily, but gently. I will try to find the balance between not forcing myself upon people and the sensitive pride that keeps me apart when people don’t openly invite me closer.

I will try not to feel daunted and discouraged by the task of weaving myself into circles already established. The most wonderful people I know love me and want me as a friend, so surely as I go through life I will only find more people who also want me. It isn’t really magic, after all, even though it can seem that way.

So above all, I will try to be active, yet patient. I’m just not very good at patience!

Otto's Trials, Otto's Triumphs

Poor Otto. He had a bad weekend, didn't he? For those of you following along at home...

When your coolant temperature sensor fails, it can sometimes forget to tell your radiator fan to turn on.

When your radiator fan doesn't turn on, the coolant generally overheats.

When your coolant overheats too much, it can crack your radiator and ruin the pump.

Believe me. I ought to know.

So, while they were fixing Otto up with a new radiator, etc., they pointed out that the timing belt was due for a change. Well, was going to have to happen sooner or later. Sure, why not now, while he's already in various stages of disassembly?

With the engine out for the timing belt change, they noticed a cracked engine mount. Ooooh, so THAT's what that rattling sound was when I was stopped at stop lights.

With the damage repaired, or the damage done, depending on the damage you speak of, Otto came home with a NEW strange rattle. So the next day he went back to the doctor, to find that an exhaust clamp had slipped loose, but was repaired easily enough, and for free. Unlike the other repairs!

So now my Otto is no longer an overheating rattletrap of a little white car. He runs smoothly and quietly, and is perfectly content!

Except for the intermittent hiss of the air conditioner compressor valves slowly going out.

But that's another story, for another time.

Always an Adventure

So after work today, I had two goals:

1. Purchase clear sewing thread.
2. See Harry Potter movie.

I decided to join these with another goal. Go see what's on the West Bank. Now, in Google searching for stores I've wanted to visit, I've often seen that there are locations both in Metairie and Gretna. Gretna is actually a bit closer, but, it's a funny thing, I've always gone to Metairie. See, to get to Gretna I have to cross the river. There's a bridge, yes. A HUGE bridge. For some reason, though, the river is just deeply ingrained in my mind as an insurmountable barrier. Which is ridiculous. So today, I set out to conquer the West Bank. Which, incidentally, is east of here. o_O

(N.B. I realized today that my office building is, in fact, east of the Mississippi, west of the Mississippi, north of the Mississippi, and south of the Mississippi.)

I also needed to pick three pictures up at the framers, but it was raining, so I figured I'd wait until tomorrow, after the couch is delivered.

I accomplished my two (or three) goals with reasonable ease, and even found a Texas Roadhouse restaurant, which I think Mom and Brooke had been asking about. Yes, they have one here. No, the chicken fried steak is not worth it.

Thread purchased and movie viewed, I turned to go back the way I came. Which worked fine until I saw the sign that said the bridge was tolled. Get that. No indication on the way over that there would be a toll coming back. It caught me a bit off guard. My thought process went something like...

"Toll, is that on the bridge *I* need."

"Looks like it. I have money, right?"

"Shit, do I have money?"

"Shit, what if they don't take money, and it's tag only?"

"Uh oh, last exit to not pay."

So I exited, found a gas station, bought a drink, and asked the attendant if the toll booths took money, and how late the ferries run. The ferries run until 9pm, apparently. This was told me at 9:15pm. Fortunately, the toll booths do, in fact, take cash. Disaster averted.

Or so I thought, especially after I paid my toll and reved up to cross the bridge and get back on my side of the river.

Everything seemed fine, until I took the exit for I-10 East and Slidell, and in glancing down at my dash, noticed...

1. The check engine light
2. The temperature gauge in the red zone

SHIT.

I'm on flippin' I-10. The closest exit is the one for home. I throw on the hazard lights, slow down to 40 mph, and start praying.

I prayed and prayed and prayed, and finally parallel parked as soon as I could, partially blocking a driveway, it's true, but I've been told no one ever uses that drive. I hope I've been told correctly. I'll sort it out tomorrow.

As I pull into my space, and, in fact, at any point off the highway when I had to slow down and stop, billows of smoke came from under my hood. This is not going to be good. I can feel it. I'm also pissed, because I know the problem has been there for a while, but the last time I took it to the mechanics and asked them to fix the rattling, they insisted there was nothing wrong. Great.

Well, it's parked now. I have the number for a mechanic, obtained from a friend here in the Quarter, who was finally available when I called (been trying to reach him for some other stuff for a while). Well, this was when it counted, and he was there, and let me come over and have my nervous breakdown with a friend. I'm thankful for that. I was feeling very alone.

So, tomorrow, after the couch is delivered, I'll be arranging for my car to be towed to a mechanic somewhere, and then I'll have to sort out how to get my pictures home from the framers. It's only 3 blocks. If the weather is dry, I'll just walk back and forth three times. That's about my morning walk anyhow.

So, yes. It's been an adventure.

Wish my Otto good luck. I'm really worried about him. :-(

Elegy for a Fading Love

Shower streaming down on me

Early morning elegy

For a love not meant to be

Hot water pouring down on me

Cleaving me and crumbling me

Bits of me dissolved

Down the drain

Lost in sobs and shudderings

Drawn from me

Explode from me

Feeling love’s grasp slackening

Kill it now! It’s weak.

Crush it under foot, be strong!

Be brave…

Be quick…

Burn its Hydra neck before

Another head leaps out

Mouthful of teeth to bite and hold…

Not strong, not brave, not quick

Waiting, watching frozen still

Feel it loosen, washed down

Worn down by tears

Clinging somewhere out of sight

Faded into grief and night

I could have loved forever…

Couldn’t I?

Can’t I?

Won’t I?

Will I ever?

Now to live again just out of reach

Just out of touch

Heart wakened from a dream

Just to find itself alone

Come back but cold and quivering

Drawing heat from shower steam

Finally Caught a Brake...

... Tag.  A brake tag.  They're infuriatingly hard to get.  Elusive little beasts.

First, what is a brake tag?  I have two simple answers.

1) It's the rough equivalent of the Texas state inspection, only it's fairly curtailed.  They check lights, wipers, horn, and brakes, but not emissions or anything.

2) It's a scam.

Seriously.  If it was really about my safety, it would NOT be so hard to get one!

Brake tags can only be obtained:

1. In your parish of residence
2. Between the hours of 8am and 4pm
3. Monday through Friday
4. When the streets are dry

I've compiled most this list through some trial and... well... error.  So, there are eleven stations listed on the City of New Orleans website as providing brake tags. Four of them are reasonably close to the Quarter, though not exactly spitting distance.  I had things to do nearish the closest one, so I headed down there.  I pulled into the station at 4:06pm, and got several heads shaken at me, one arm waving me away, and another pointing towards a sign listing the hours.  So I'd have to leave work early.  Great.

So, this Tuesday I left work early, made it home before the downpour, changed, and hopped in the car.  I pulled into the station parking lot, completely deserted.  Then I saw the sign. I'd missed it the day before.  "If it's raining, we'll be closed."  Sigh.

Wednesday I was home sick.  By the afternoon I felt pretty much better, so I thought about trying again.  It had been raining off and on, but the sun kept peeking out, so I thought maybe it was done.  I decided to call first this time.  I looked up the numbers, and in passing noticed that one near me was open on Saturday mornings.  Didn't see that before.  Well, the place I called said that they were 1) out of brake tags and wouldn't have any more until the next day, and 2) it had been raining and the streets were still wet.  Can't do the inspections when the roads are wet.

Well, glad I called.

Now, I'm not much of a morning person.  Especially not on on Saturdays.  Plus I have a lot of stuff to get done this Saturday.  So leaving that for a last resort, I decided to take off early from work one last time and try to get this done.

So today I checked the weather forecast.  After a drizzly morning, it was expected to be clear until night.  I left work early for one last try before I resorted to the Saturday option.  I drove out to a different station this time.  I got there and it looked pretty deserted, but had a sign that it was still open during construction.  So I pulled in, parked, and went in and asked the attendant if they did brake tags.

Guess what.

They don't.  Funny, that's the station that listed Saturday hours.  So much for even trying on the weekend.

At this point it was 3:15pm.  I headed back to the closer station, the one I'd missed at twice.

Third time's a charm.

I pulled into a line with some other cars.  After a bit of a wait, my car was inspected, FINALLY, the tag placed on my windshield, and I pulled back out onto the road and headed for home.

Just then, it started raining.

The Journey, the Saga, the Epic

Well, I'm in New Orleans.

I've been here a week.  I've been getting stuff in order.  Once it's all done, I'll take pictures and set up a tour.  It'll be fun. :-P

It started on Saturday.  Salvation Army said they couldn't come get the couch until about the time I would be out at brunch, so I told them they'd have to cancel, decided the couch would come to NOLA after all, and went out to run some errands.

Went to drop off the cable modem.  The Comcast location I normally go to was... closed.  So I called Comcast to find another location.  The moron on the line took ten minutes to tell me there were two locations I could go to in Houston.  The Best Buy or the Target.  Hmmm.  The Best Buy didn't know what to do, and one of their managers gave me directions to a Comcast location, but that ended up to be corporate headquarters.  Fortunately someone THERE told me where to go, and two hours later, I was able to shed that cable modem.

Got back in time for brunch with the family, which was lovely.  We were about to start packing when Salvation Army showed up.  For the couch.  Which did not come to New Orleans after all.

We spent the rest of that day packing.  I got up early on Sunday, which was just as well, because at 9am, the movers called and asked if they could move my time from 1pm to... earlier.  Couldn't get the truck until 10:30, so told them 11am.  When I walked outside at 10am to go get the U-Haul, the movers were already there.  Things went into high gear from there.

I woke up at 2:30am on Monday.  My whole life, just about, was in that truck.  I was lying in an empty apartment on an air matress.  I didn't sleep much after that, and at 5am I couldn't take it any more and had to check that no one had robbed my truck.  It was fine, and after another hour of dozing, just getting up and getting to it seemed like the thing to do.  So I did it.  Everyone was rounded up and loaded on time, and we were on the road before 8am.

And stuck in morning traffic on I-10.

Which of course cleared out past downtown.  The drive to New Orelans was smooth and uneventful.  I got in about 30 to 40 minutes ahead of the truck, unloaded my car, mopped the floor, all that.  The truck showed up and the spots I'd hoped to block were taken, but we managed to get it parked after a bit.  Of course, I had to direct Greg on how to get it away from the car he had rested it up against, but there wasn't any damage at all.  Thank God.

The movers showed up and started unloading.  We had to move a big orange safety barrel that was coving the utility access hole missing its cover and filled with water right in front of my gate.  I kept worrying about the dolly or the movers going into it.  Should have known I'd be the one instead. :-P  Was walking toward the gate and put my foot right into it.  As Brooke pointed out, I'm lucky I have these short little feet.  I went straight down with only a slight ankle wrench and some bruises and scrapes.  And a bit of sprained dignity.  But I was fine.

Finally the truck was unloaded and then... we got to work.  Unpacking, cleaning, arranging, boxes everywhere.  Then finally... stillness. Quiet.

And I slept that night in my own bed, in my new home.

Plugs for My Friends

So, I have some very brave and daring and entrepreneurial friends.  I wanted to give them a shout out, and might do so periodically, because they're just that awesome.

First off, there's my friend Joanna.  She's just started her own business creating custom photobooks, and her product is amazing.  I should know, I was one of her first customers, and she has taken my photos from my 2007 trip to Italy and made something really special.  If you ever find yourself in need of a special gift, or are lost amid your own swathes of digital photos, you just have to check out http://photobooksolutions.com/ for more info on the options she can help you explore.  And if you want to see my favorite sample of her work, just check this out:

http://photobooksolutions.com/samples/vacation_photobook_1/index.html

Second, my buddy Kevin and his lovely intended Nuance are the proud new owners of a bakery.  I stopped by today to acquire some cupcakes, which are DELICIOUS.  I peeked at some of the works in progress and was duly impressed.  They'll have their new site http://frostedbakeryonline.com/ up soon.  In the meantime they're still flying under the previous colors at http://yellowrosebakery.com/ .

Anyhow, it's an exciting time and I'm very proud of my friends!

New Digs!

I spent the weekend scrubbing my new place from top to bottom, taking measurements, creating floorplans, and filling the refridgerator with Gatorade.  I'm exhausted, but it was very productive, and I'm very excited!

I did have one scary moment while I was vacuuming.  I stuck the nozzle of the hose down into a nook beside one of the fireplaces, and pulled out... well, at a glance my stomach dropped because I was pretty sure it was a dead mouse.  If I could have reversed the vacuum and put it back, and had had someone else to come deal with it for me, I'd have done that.  But it was up to me, so after a few frozen moments, I pulled the nozzle nearer and saw... a rubber mouse cat toy.  Whew!

I need weather stripping, and the air conditioner doesn't really cool, so that needs fixing, but I love it love it love it!

Here!  Go see pictures!

Sliding Down the Slippery Slope

Posted this on Facebook a while back, but decided to put it here as well. As an update, the keys are being sent to me soon, so it's time to start planning! EEP!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So. It's official. I've signed a lease on a rental in the French Quarter. No backing out of it now! I'm moving.

Yesterday was a LONG day! I started looking at places at 10am. I saw a strange little place on Conti that was pretty much one large room with a notch walled off to contain a bathroom. I'd liked it on the listings website, but wasn't so sure in person. Then I saw a two-bedroom walk-up on Dumaine that left me fairly unimpressed. Not terrible, just not what I was looking for.

The priciest property I saw was a nice two story, two bedroom with balconies that have a view of Royal Street. Would have been very convenient for viewing festivities, but kind of noisy, kind of pricey, no washer/dryer, and a spiral staircase. Now, I used to like the idea of a spiral staircase. They're pretty, they save space, etc. But they give me nightmares. Going up I did fine, but when it came time to descend, I got to the head of the stairs and just froze. It took most of the will power I could muster to go down, and I never wanted to walk up that flight again. Unreasonable, irrational, neurotic, etc. It was a very nice place. Still.

We weren't going to be able to see the one on Madison until the afternoon, but in the mean time, we went to see the one on St. Philip.

When I walked in, I stopped, and behind me the agent showing me the apartment and I both said, "Wow!"

Now, it's not perfect. It's a little farther from work than I was planning. The window in the bathroom precludes the shower curtain from being more than 5 feet off the ground right now, which may or may not lend itself to some creative problem solving. But it just seemed so... right. So me. I was sold. Went back to the realty office, filled out an application for a lease starting May 1 (YES! that was my biggest worry, that i'd have to pay double rent in April or come back later), and I don't think it was 11:30am yet.

Of course, then I found out I would need certified checks for the deposit and the first month's rent. I looked up the nearest Washington Mutual and found that it was... in... Baytown. Texas. Nice. Well, I'd known I would be better off opening a new Chase account anyway, since they have a location in the French Quarter. So I headed down to the branch on Royal and Bienville to take care of that.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. I opened the account, got lunch, got approved, got certified checks for the deposit and first month of rent, walked back to the realtor's and signed the lease. Done by 5:30pm. What a day. I had to keep reminding myself the rest of the evening that it was still Thursday. It seemed like three days. But they were good days. :-)

So, I was so delighted with the rental property itself that I forgot to take photos. But I went back today and got at least some exterior shots. So...

This is my block. I'm not in the green house, or the one with the white balcony, or the orange one, but the beige one right after that.

Yup, that one there, between the orange and the pink. I think it's divided roughly in half front and back. I have the back half, by the little courtyard.

Yeah, back there somewhere. Not really going to be much fun getting furniture through there, I imagine. There was another door that might present a better option, but it was locked. I'll probably find out more in May.

But anyway, there's my place! I'm so excited!

Through a Glass Darkly

Slowly she seeped into my awareness, until the sight of her filled my soul with wonder and the world, for a moment, stopped. The first thing I noticed was the color of her hair, like hayfields in the rain, then it's texture, fine, loose, wisps and waves slipping out of the pink bow perched on the back of her head. I've seen hair exactly like that in fading photographs. Then the size of her, the awkward slimness and smallness, head not reaching her father's waist as she stood by his side, shifting weight from one foot to the other. The longness of her still face, the high smooth forehead, the wide, solemn eyes, a spirit contained, quiet, thoughtful, in spite of the nervous, restless motion that set her hair swaying across her shoulders with the regular beat of a clock pendulum.

Seeing her during mass, standing in the front row of chairs with her family, her image expanded, unfocused, shifted in my mind, resolved and slipped again like a kaleidoscope into a hundred frozen moments from the pictures in our old family albums. That elfin little blond girl across the chapel was the image of me, twenty-five years ago.

I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I wanted to reach out and pull her to me, stoop down and gaze into those eyes and find myself again. Find the child I was, the dreams I had. Find the things that sometimes seem lost, though I've worked hard to keep so many things that make a child a child, but don't keep a woman from being a woman. Hope, wonder, trust. I know they're still here inside my heart, but not the way they were, and I wanted to hear her speak and drink them in her voice.

But for all I may have lost, and I'm not convinced I have, seeing her there thrilled me with a sense of excitement to think of all I've gained and grown to be since I was her. The things I've done, the things I've learned, the things I love about life and myself that I never dreamed as a child. Every beginning, and I'm standing at the edge of a beginning with my move to New Orleans... every beginning is a new childhood, a chance to turn back time and approach a new world as a new person. I feel myself as an extension of her, as a maturing tree stands straight in the same spot as the sapling it once was, only with more layers, thicker foliage, deeper roots. I haven't changed as much as you'd think. I'm only reaching out farther, all the time, and learning that I can bend and grow into that reach without breaking off and falling away.

Time resumed and she slipped away from me, still standing there rocking gently from one foot to the other, but she was herself and I was me again. I wished a little that I could approach her, take her hands and smile at her, give the vision back to her, though it's better that I can't. Who would want to project themselves onto the future of a child? Who could presume to so limit it? For her the possibilities for the years she'll traverse before she comes to where I am are still endless, and what a treasure that is.

But for me the treasure is the truth she gave to me, as my eyes traced and reveled in the uncanny resemblance, over and over again, with wonder.

I am still a child, and the possibilities are still endless.

The Birth of Christianity: A Jewish Story

I'm taking the class offered jointly through Rice Continuing Studies and the Houston Museum of Natural Science based on the exhibit The Birth of Christianity: A Jewish Study. Personally, I feel I got much more out of this exhibit after just the brief lecture our class was given before we viewed it. To that end, I'm posting my impressions. Go see the exhibit. I found it incredibly moving and I can't wait for the other classes, to learn more about the people who gave rise to my faith.

*****

There’s a dream-like quality to a museum after hours. A stillness deepened by hushed voices, shadows deepened by the few last lights left on. I think this class will take on a completely different dimension from being in the museum in the evenings. Knowledge seems to hang in the air as palpably as incense in a temple.

Today’s first class began with a lecture given by one of the co-curators of the exhibit, Matthias Henze, a professor of biblical studies at Rice. Dr. Henze spoke about the creation and development of the exhibit as a collaboration between himself and two archeologists in Israel. He discussed the history of scholarship focused on Judaism during the period the exhibit covers, and the story the exhibit tells in response to that scholarship.

Until mid-way through the 20th century (CE), scholars of Judaic history focused on the writings of Josephus, a Jewish rebel captured by the Romans during the 1st century CE who eventually returned with Titus to Rome, Latinized his name, and became a historian. He described the Jewish people as three schools of thought, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, and for many years his writings were taken as authoritative.

This changed midway through the 20th century, primarily due to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, expanded study of non-canonical texts, and archeological projects begun in the newly established state of Israel. This exhibit aims to show that Judaism of the Second Temple Period was much richer, more complex, and more diverse than Josephus' three-school paradigm, and that Christianity at its roots was one of many Jewish groups. Jesus himself and his followers were raised within Jewish society and tradition, and Paul in Romans 9-11 describes the foundling faith as a branch grafted onto an olive tree, and supported by the roots of Judaism.

Dr. Henze summarized the five time periods that divided the exhibit and suggested a particular display to take note of in each. The class then proceeded into the exhibit hall for a self-paced tour.

The first part of the exhibit comprises artifacts from the Helenistic period beginning in the 4th century BCE when Alexander the Great conquered pretty much everything. The Jewish people divided along the lines of acceptance or denial of the new Greek culture. Some took on Greek names, others adhered strictly to their own traditions. This reminded me of an idea I discussed a bit with a friend about what seems like a recent increase in neo-traditionalism in some Christian faiths. At any rate, those tensions culminated in the Maccabee revolt in the 2nd century, when the temple in Jerusalem was retaken and the Hasmonean dynasty established.

The first point of interest was actually the time line near the entrance, stretching from the 6th century BCE into the 1st century CE. Just standing at the timeline reading it brought forth things to give pause. After about three minutes of confusion, I realized that the timeline was oriented from right to left, the way Hebrew is read, instead of the left to right I was expecting. While I was realizing this, I overheard a Jewish couple as they discovered out loud that AD did not represent the years after the death of Jesus. They’d always thought that’s when the counting began, but here the death of Jesus was in 34 CE (AD).

Me being me, I piped up that AD, standing for anno domini, meant “the year of the Lord” and so measured time beginning with Jesus' life, and that I used to think it stood for “after death” and had been confused as well. When I began my unsolicited expounding, they turned to me with looks of rapt attention, and I remembered the cross hanging from a chain around my neck above my collar. For no real reason I began to feel like I must sound pendantic and patronizing, and I felt my face go hot. I’m sure I didn’t offend. I hope I didn’t. They seemed interested. It just made me feel so self-conscious of the things I take for granted. It’s not that I’ve never noticed them before, and worked to be more aware of them. It just hit closer to home for a few moments than it normally does.

I stared at the timeline for several minutes more, just collecting myself and letting my face cool before moving on to the next portion of the exhibit, covering the Roman period. Pompey conquered the Jewish lands in the 1st century BCE, and from 37-4 BCE, Herod the Great ruled as the king of the Jews, elected to this position by the Roman senate. The point of interest here was the model of Herod’s rebuilt Jerusalem. The docent and the accompanying text described the different sections along with Herod’s renovations to the existing temple (including the addition of a commercial arcade directly bordering the temple precincts). The docent spoke of Herod’s struggle to rule a Jewish people when he himself was Roman with only faint traces of Jewish ancestry, the controversy surrounding views of his personality and leadership, and his undeniably rich gift to the Holy Land in terms of architecture.

I found it interesting, of course, that the Herod who slew the innocents in the New Testament died four years before the birth of Christ. I think this is something I knew before. I’ve never had the benefit of a theological explanation, but to the literary critic in me, it seems like a clear retelling of Moses’ escape from the slaughter of Pharaoh, used in the context of the Gospel to emphasize the authority of Christ as a figure leading his followers out of oppression (it was hoped) and establishing with them a faith that in the time of the gospel writing would have been straying ever farther away from Judaism. Reason number 428, I suppose, why I can’t interpret the Bible literally.

The third section of the exhibit featured a number of ossuaries, relatively small boxes, about 1 ft by 3 ft, used to hold the bones of the dead after their remains have lain for a year in the customary rock tombs, sort of like the above-ground burial tradition in New Orleans.

What struck me most about the ossuaries was how, no matter how beautifully the stone boxes were carved, the names seemed to be scratched on, or even written on in ink, as an untidy after thought. The docent I questioned pointed out that one would buy these boxes from a master carver, the artist who created them, and the name would be put on later, but this didn’t really make sense to me, because after all, you have a year to be coming up with this box and all before you actually put the next person in it.

One ossuary had an elaborately carved rosette on one side, and an unfinished raised circle of stone on the other. The docent said that one theory of why it was left unfinished is that it was needed suddenly, and once the body was put in, the carver could no longer touch it for reasons of ritual purity. Again, this seeming haste doesn’t make much sense to me, considering that not only does one know for a year that one will be needing this thing, but one might also have already used it, since some ossuaries are inscribed with multiple names, and held the remains of several family members. It is interesting to note, though, that the unfinished one was inscribed in Hebrew while the only ossuary with artfully and carefully inscribed names had them in Greek. Another was inscribed with Aramaic, another instance of the cultural and linguistic diversity of the times.

The point of interest in this section, though, was not the most ornate ossuary. The most significant ossuary there hadn’t even been smoothed. Its sides still showed the scalloped marks the chisel that carved it out of a block of limestone. But faint scratches mark it as the ossuary of “Alexander, son of Simon the Cyrene,” the same Simon of Cyrene, father of Rufus and Alexander, that helped Jesus carry the cross.

Awe is not what a 52” LCD hi-def television inspires, no matter how many times my friend insists that his television is literally awesome. Awe is the icy grip that clenched my stomach and made my heart race standing before this plain stone box. The terror and humility of my own smallness before this depth of history and power of tradition, a force that can make something so rough and ordinary mean so much. Amazement that after so much has been destroyed by time or war, this box is still here to dovetail with a seemingly inconsequential detail from a text almost two thousand years old.

Still in awe, I walked into the Masada section of the exhibit, to be turned farther inward by the music of a flute, low and hauntingly sad, more of a moaning wail of breath than melody. Looking at a photograph of those startling hilltop ruins, the sigh of the flute became the sound of a desolate wind wailing around rock crags, the only voice in an empty waste.

The artifacts here aren’t the artifacts of commerce and luxury as in the other exhibits. They are the artifacts of life under siege. Jars for the storage of dry goods in storerooms that all too soon must have begun to look as bare as the unassailable and inescapable hilltop the fortress perched on. Built by Herod to house his family in safety during revolts in his own time, by the time the rebels of Masada fled there, the palace fortress was already a ruin. Long after the Romans put down the revolt elsewhere, Masada still stood in unconquered isolation, until the remaining Jewish rebels committed mass suicide rather than face their inevitable capture and enslavement.

The point of interest in this room is the Jeselsohn stone, a tablet of two columns of Hebrew are written in black ink, faded with time, the same format used for the Dead Sea Scrolls. The tablet appears to recall a visitation by an angel. One scholar, somewhat controversially, interprets the text as an angel’s account to a messianic figure of his impending death, to be followed in three days by his resurrection to eternal life. The stone is estimated to be contemporary with the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating back to before the birth of Christ.

The fifth and final section of the exhibit was in a room darker than any before it. I’m not sure if anything was intended by the journey from well lit rooms into this darkness, just as Jewish and Christian artifacts begin to appear side by side, other than protection for the most delicate pieces there: passages of gospel in Greek on papyrus, and the gem of the collection, fragments of the Dead Sea Scroll containing the book of Isaiah. I leaned over the display, my face close to the clear cover, taking in ever detail of the text, the discoloration of the fabric it’s written on, the fine, even grain of the material that makes it look like woven silk, and makes me wonder what methods of preservation were necessary to keep this brittle, fragile parchment safe on it’s travels. This scroll will leave next week, to be replaced by another. By law the scrolls cannot be outside of Israel for more than three months.

It was a gift to see it, Isaiah, beside early manuscripts in Greek of the gospel of Luke and a letter of Paul. To see newly emerging Christian imagery, the overlapping chi and rho, and even Christ with a sword defeating a basilisk, a drastic departure from the strict avoidance of graven images in the Judaic art, with its menorahs, shofars, wreaths, or purely geometric ornaments. The exhibit was a gift, and gave me so much to think about in the weeks ahead, as I learn more of the stories behind the objects.

I walked into the museum in a kind of dream. I left in a dream of a different sort.

I saw this image just now. And it evokes about the same feeling as this painting I saw in the Vatican Museum. Mostly a wrenching in my gut and a barely controlled urge to sob.

Faith has inspired so much beauty in this world, elevated the creative power of humankind to the sublime. And then, in the name of God (the same Power, just under a different name, it seems to me so many times, as the Power that hallows what we're destroying) look at the shitty things we do to each other.

Why is it? No. Who even cares. It should stop. Or we should at least stop deluding ourselves and telling ourselves it's what God wants.

I'm pretty damn sure it isn't.

Touchstone

I sat curled up against my father's tombstone this afternoon, back hunched against the north wind, eyes shut against tears, with stray gleams of the sun through the clouds warm on my right cheek. I'd been at Momo's for Thanksgiving Sunday dinner, and I wanted to stop by to visit Daddy, like I sometimes do. I'd taken my map with me from the car, to look over the new route I wanted to try going home, and I'd found myself talking out loud about the road numbers and towns I'd go through.

It occurred to me for the first time that this, too, was something I'd be leaving behind me when I moved. My father's essence I carry in my heart, but the place where his bones rest has been a center for me. If I have any home right now, it's at his side, but I can't live always on that windy hilltop. I still walk above the ground, and I have to find my home out here somewhere. But the times when I've felt soul-weary, over-burdened with the claims I place on myself or allow others to place on me, I've been able to get in my car and drive west. Drive to this place where my roots sink into the earth. It's a place where only the most fundamental feelings can live, where I am truly myself, and where everything else is tested, found wanting, and drops away. It's only an hour and a half from Houston.

It will be almost eight hours from New Orleans.

I was offered the choice between relocating to Florida or Oregon or losing my job when my company closed their Houston site the month after my father died. I couldn't leave then. I couldn't leave my family, and I couldn't leave his grave so far behind so soon. It doesn't have that hold on me now. I've risen from those ashes and gone out and onward, as I had to. Life in this world isn't a high plain of happiness we climb towards, where nothing troubles us and we're content. Life is always walking forward, as pieces of ourselves fall away, and are left behind, and as we find new pieces that become a part of us, adding more without replacing what's lost. But I've always been able to come back so easily to where his body rests. Knowing for the first time that I'd be leaving that behind, I hunched against the warm stone, almost hugging it, as I'd hug him if I could sit by his side again, telling him my plans.

I opened my eyes to the silver-gray gravel that covers the ground that covers him. My eyes were caught by one rough pebble. Maybe it was its shape, a small tablet, almost a tiny tombstone itself. Maybe it was the angle of the sunlight that sparkled on it's face. I brushed my hand through the shards of stone, closing my finger tips on this one. I held it lightly in my palm, then squeezed it in my fist. I slid it into my pocket as I stood up. I'll take this with me now, wherever I go. I'll keep it safe. I'll find some special place for it. And when life gets too crowded, too heavy, too crazy, I'll take it somewhere quiet, and in thinking on it, let the world fall away. It won't be quite the same, but it's the best I can do when I can't be by his side.

I turned to the carved headstone one more time, traced his name slowly with my eyes. I promised him I'd come again, soon, at Christmas.

And I promised I'd come and say good bye before I go.

The Roar of the Wind in My Ears

Normally my weeks are paced by days when I don't have any obligations, and punctuated by things I need to be at.

I feel like, until a week into next year, I've been dropped into the headlong rush of constant engagement. I love the holidays, but not this part.

Rehearsals, football games, parades, concerts, appointments with doctors and the spa, on-line courses, hotel reservations, plane tickets, rental cars, highway mileage, Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, shipping and handling, work on the work days, and friends and family on the days I don't work. The last week of this is a vacation in the desert with just me. Sounds like heaven about now, if I can only get there.

A thought sprang up out of my heart a moment ago, as my soul curled into the fetal position and whimpered, "I want to go home." Over and over again. Has it really been so long since I felt this way that it comes as a surprise, or is it that I've felt this way for so long that the litany has become the constant background of my thoughts?

And where is home, if not here? The hills where I grew up? The desire for home pervaded my mind at times even when I lived there. My mother's house, my grandmother's? Where my family is? I love my family, but I feel so distant from them in some ways, even though there's comfort in the way they're always there. Is home where my heart is? My heart has no home. It's not welcome where it wants to be, and it's so tired of searching for a place to rest. Is my only true home in the next world? I could have a long wait, and I'm not a patient person.

The wind of these days is a constant roar in my ears, drowning out and beating down the small things inside. Things happen all around me at the same racing tempo, and they become not changes but a lack of change. Every day there are new things to do, but every day there are things to do, so no day stands above the rest, a goal to reach, a place to pause. There will be days of rest, I know, unseen now, but found again like warm hollows in a winter field. And in these hollows, treasures lie, of love, of hope, of peace, memories to cherish, moments that are, in their own way, a blessed eternity.

But here where I stand now, the wind rushes past me over a vast expanse, featureless and remote. The wind pushes me, stumbling blindly, forward, across the time from now to then.

Lost Socks and Other Slips Betwixt the Cup and Lip

There's been a pattern emerging in my life just lately. A leitmotif, if you will. I've been losing my grip.

No, no, literally, not figuratively. :-)

Things have been slipping through my fingers, falling out of my hands, I've been even more clumsy than usual, and I'm not sure why, or if there's even a reason. The funny thing is, I haven't dropped anything.

In the grocery store the other day, I pulled a bag of chips from the shelf. The one next to it came out, too, and in reaching to catch the second bag, I lost my hold on the first. After a fraction of a second of bobbling chip bags, things came to a stop and I was standing slightly crouched, but with both bags of chips cupped lightly and safely in my arms. A few days later I was measuring spices for a spread I was making, and as I picked up a teaspoon measure, it slid out of my grip. As it fell towards the counter, I caught it up in my other hand. It seems like something similar has happened five or six more times in the past few days, but I can't clearly recollect.

Each time it happens, it makes me think. Think about things in my life that I've lost my hold on. Things that seem to be getting away from me. Things I don't have in hand, and don't have under control. Things I'm afraid I'll lose. This reminds me that even when my grip is tenuous, I can still hang on, and even when I can't hang on, I can reach out again as they fly from me, and grasp them with a grip even stronger. I just have make the effort with confidence and without hesitation. After all, I stumble all the time, but I very rarely fall to the ground.

In the past it's been my habit to jerk away when I drop something. To raise my hands clear and watch it fall. This is because I used to work with soldering irons, when reaching out to catch a falling object could mean a serious burn. I think I've done the same thing on a metaphoric level as well. When I lose control of things and they began to slide away from me, there are times when I've just jumped clear. And there are times when that's appropriate. But there are other times when a quick, deft action can save a situation that seemed lost.

Anyhow, it's something to think about, and maybe an example of the still, small voice that doesn't speak in the tempest, the earthquake, or the fire, but instead through the little things we take to heart. And while we're on the subject of things that seemed lost, but are unexpectedly recovered, I found one of those socks that disappear in the laundry, half of my favorite pair. It's been missing for over a year. I feel like the woman who has twenty pieces of silver and loses one, how happy she is when she finds it, and how she calls out to her friends to be joyful with her. Rejoice with me, for the favorite sock, which I'd lost, has been found!

I think it's a sign. I don't know of what. Presaging other things I think I'll never see again, that may reappear in unexpected places? I don't know.

But I think it's a sign.

City of New Orleans

Do I give over heart and dreams?
Do I sink them in the river
Baptize them, watch them come up new.
Do I call this home
And wrap it around my soul?
A quick flip of fin or feather
A dark shape slides into the depths
Slipping into narrow streets
I offer heart and soul and dreams.
I lose myself.
I always do.

I landed in New Orleans after dark, cabbed to the hotel and settled in. The Quarter called to me, but I shied at first. I got as far as the Walgreen's on Canal Street and Baronne, and chatted and laughed with the cashier over my purchases (cookies, pencils, chips, and a map).

I'd planned at first to scout apartments, but I didn't do enough research to be ready for that. Ditto on my second plan, to ride all of the streetcar routes. I finally decided to do the things I'd always wanted to do, but hadn't done.

I'd never visited the Riverwalk Mall. I went there and found the most amazing food court, with pizzas and calzones and a tray of enormous turkey legs. I walked down the river longer than ever before, from the mall to Governor Nicholls wharf. The sky was as gray as the river below and I watched the waves as the Natchez steam calliope began to warm up. I leaned on the railing and watched a snail, a strange little jewel against the steel, as it pushed out into a rain drop, then pulled back into its home. I turned my back on the water and looked down into the streets. Could this be home for me?

Up and down the streets in a fairly aimless wander, I found myself beneath the convent walls. It had just run through my mind how I'd always wanted to go on the tour, and they'd never been running them, when I passed an open doorway and a sign announcing tours from 10am to 4pm. I nearly fell sideways into the archway out of surprise. Two ladies were standing in a little giftshop. I took the tour and asked the poor docent all sorts of questions she didn't know answers to. Then I chatted for several minutes with the lady in the gift shop. When I told her I'd be moving there, she was so excited for me, and made me promise to stop by and see her sometime. I made a friend. :-)

Fried chicken at Fiorella's, then I took a bus tour, something else I've never done. I saw some of Frenchman's Street, St. Louis Cemetery number 3, the spot where the 17th Street Canal failed, the Garden District, and the house Payton and Eli Manning grew up in.

Later that night I decided that while it wasn't something new, I'd like to take the Haunted History vampire tour again. The tour guide last December, Jonathan, had been a great story teller, and had been quite nice to look at, too. I walked to the cathedral where the tour gathered, and saw none other than Jonathan himself. I paid for my tour, and after glancing at me a few times as I milled around, he turned to me and said, "You've been on my tour before." I agreed that I had! "Towards the end of last year?" Yes!

Now, I know exactly why I remember him, and at any rate, I'd only had one vampire tour guide. But he gives these tours all the time, and I have to say I'm pretty flattered that ten months after giving me that one tour, he recognized me. I might have to look him up when I move. It's nice to think a good-looking guy finds me, if nothing else, memorable. :-)

Oh. The next day there was a football game. Rice won. Yay!

I took the ghost tour after dinner on Saturday. My tour guide had a black German Shepherd named Sarah, and I made friends with her. Then I did something else I'd never done. I had my palm read in Jackson Square. I watched Jerik read four other people while I was waiting. They were all so similar that I wondered if he just always said the same things. But he seemed to be indicating the right parts of their hands as he spoke, from what I know about palmistry.

Then he got to my hand, and I was pretty different from all of them. Let's see. I have an earth hand, meaning I am a practical and down to earth person. (That I'm not so sure of.) My intellect line is a full six out of six. "My dear, you are *very* bright, with incredibly good reasoning skills." I have artistic fingers, tapered from base to tip, with a managerial spread to my four fingers, "and about as independent a thumb as you can have and still function when working with others." Some part of my hand indicates that I'm as stubborn as "two Missouri mules, a wooly mammoth, and a house cat, for good measure." Unlike all of the indented mounds of Saturn before me, indicating people who never want to grow up, my mound of Saturn is flat. "You, my dear, really are an adult, though indicates that you will age only slowly, and will probably always look ten years younger than you really are." I have an extensive heart line, and will maintain friendships for a lifetime. I have good triangulation of Neptune, indicating strong people skills. My fertility line is pretty productive, "My dear, you could people a small village if you wanted to. You have the potential for seven children if you care to have that many." And as for my life line, I had the longest one he'd seen all evening, and could easily live into my nineties with none of the serious ailments attending age, like Alzheimers. Of course, I don't believe any of it, but it's kinda fun!

After that, I met up with Chuck and we walked up and down Bourbon Street a bit. A woman with a cooler actually offered to sell Chuck a Miller Lite. One can't really expect her to understand why I doubled over laughing. Chuck got himself a real beer and we wound our way through the crowd. At the Halloween party inside and outside of a GLBT bar, we saw a six-foot Dorothy in ruby combat boots. AWESOME.

The next morning I had the pleasure of introducing Chuck to my favorite bakery, the Croissant D'Or. He quite approved. When he headed back to the hotel to load the buses, I took myself back to Jackson Square. Something else I've always wanted to do but hadn't was go through the history museum in the Cabildo, next to the cathedral, so I did that, wandering through the exhibits and reading the placards while a solo trumpet played full and rich out in the sunlit square.

On the way back to the hotel to pick up my bags and catch a cab to the airport, I stepped into the Jesuit church on Baronne. It was dim and cool inside, adorned with a heavier intricacy than St. Louis Cathedral in the square. It was still and empty and lovely, with the hum from the traffic outside like the sound of whispered prayers, like the hum of an ocean shell. In that church I prayed that I'd find a home here, and also find a great adventure. I had some hours in the airport ahead of me, but here I said good bye to New Orleans, for now.

And that night, landing in Houston, somehow it didn't feel like the homecoming it's always been before.

A Case for Literature

I have a friend who asked me an interesting question once, sitting at my dining table with his back to my (now even more full) bookshelves. He looked back over his shoulder, waved a hand, and said, "I've never understood, what's the point of... all this?"

I asked him if he meant... books? But it turns out he gets books. He reads plenty, but it's literature, fiction, that he doesn't get. To explain something that happened, to cast history in a new light, sure, but why spend as much time and money as I've obviously spent on... stories.

I'm not sure how well I explained it, but memoirs, histories... they can only shed light on what was. Fiction, stories, can explore what could be. Not just actualities. Not even probabilities. All the possibilities. Maybe it's just me, or people like me. Maybe that's why I'm such a reader and why I became a writer. Maybe that's why all writers are writers, and something not everyone can understand. I've read accounts of history that deepened my understanding and broadened my mind. But I've read novels that completely changed my life.

I wouldn't be the person I am if Charlotte Brontë hadn't written Jane Eyre. I read it when I was something like thirteen. I guess I fell in love with Victorian England, but more to the point, I met a young woman who was intelligent and intensely rational, but at the same time deeply passionate and loving. Incredibly gentle, and incredibly strong. Young, alone, poor, and a woman when a woman had so little power for self-determination, she was offered everything she loved on terms she considered dishonorable, and offered everything honorable without love. She demanded life on her own terms, and she made that life for herself because no one else could give it to her. Of course, the story ends happy, and that's because it's a story. In life it needn't have, but still it might.

More recently I've been changed again. I always meant to read Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear, but I only got around to it this year. And after that I had to read the sequel, Valley of the Horses. Then the next book and the next. I devoured all five of the novels in the Earth's Children series. They present an incredibly deft portrait of civilizations like nothing I'd imagined. Of course, there's very little we know about those who really peopled those times and places, but it doesn't really matter that they may not have existed. They are evokative not because of strict factuality, but because of the possibility. If they don't show us what was, they show us what very well could have been, and by doing so, show us a surprising amount about what is and what could be, even now. These novels have made me feel and think in ways I never have before. I've changed in ways difficult to describe right now, because I continue to think on them, and to change.

So that's why. That's the point of literature, for me at least. It can change a person. It can change an ethos. Don't ask me to prove that in a blog. It's more of a doctoral thesis topic. And like I said, maybe that's just me.

But I wanted to ask you. Have you ever read a book that made you who you are today?

Alaska Photos Up!

http://leberwick.smugmug.com/Travel/606006

It's My Move...

I've been talking about moving for almost a year now. I came to Houston at eighteen for college, and going to school here and living here with the wonderful friends I made then and continue to make has been an amazing experience for me. I've lived here now longer than I have in any other place, but this has never been where I wanted to spend my life.

I've chickened out on moving this year, because it would mean finding a new home and packing up this one in the next two months (my current lease is up on December 1). I don't want to spend Thanksgiving that busy, and I want one last Christmas playing with my band. So I've signed a six month lease, which puts me moving at the end of May. This gives me another basketball season and six more months to watch Dylan grow. This should also be a better time for finding a new place to live.

Last year in December I took a short vacation in New Orleans. I had business in the Big Easy, and decided since my flight was paid for, I'd tack on the weekend. I had borrowed Interview with a Vampire from a friend, and my goal was to read it while I was there, in the midst of its initial setting.

I fell in love.

Not with Bourbon Street, of course. And not even with Cafe du Monde or the touristy ghost, vampire, and voodoo tours, even though I love taking them.

I fell in love with the Mississippi River. With quiet courtyards behind wrought-iron gates. With the narrow old streets, steeped in history. With the pork chops at Fiorella's. With a ham and cheese croissant and a mille fois at Croissant D'Or. With beignets for breakfast on a bench in Jackson Square. With St. Louis cathedral, its choir, and the bishop who welcomed all the people in town for the St. Louis football game, but pointed out with a mischeivous, beatific smile, that God does love cardinals, but saints are even better.

I fell in love with the way this city haunts my heart and pulls at the edges of my mind like a memory out of a dream. I don't know if it's a call from the past or the future. I don't know if there's anything there for me but the adventure of starting out somewhere new completely on my own. But I'm ready for adventure. I know what is there for me. A town I'm eager to explore, and the security of a job I already hold.

There are downsides, of course, but Ike has reminded me that Houston isn't any safer as far as hurricanes go. I'll need to talk to my boss. I'll need to plan out a great apartment hunt. I'll need to remember, when fear makes me think maybe I should just stay put, that I can always come back, or move elsewhere if things don't work out. And I'll need to remember that I can't escape the things I want to leave behind just by moving. They'll follow me, and it's up to me to be stronger than they are, but I can hope that adventure and new experiences can weaken them, make them easier to shake. There are a lot of questions I still have, a lot of doubts.

I have eight months to hash them out, so here goes!

Home Safe

After beginning with a logistics tangle of nightmare proportions due to the impending hurricane, my vacation was lovely and I arrived home about half an hour ago, a day before I'd planned, but then, I'd left two days before I'd planned, and I was ready to be back and see for myself that all was well in my own little den.

It's not that I didn't trust Tim's reports on the exceptionally untouched state of my abode and the return of electricity. But after hearing the news and seeing the pictures, I just needed to be home to feel that it was over and to really understand that I'd dodged that bullet, and everything was going to be okay.

And I did. And it is. And I'm sitting here crying, out of exhaustion after a long day of traveling, yes (at midnight Sunday I was in Canada), but also out of an overwhelmingly humbled sense of gratitude.

I am all the more amazed at how untouched my life was by the storm buy seeing how much of Houston was violently touched. It's visible on an enormous scale, and in tiny details. As we approached Hobby and were descending over the city, I was sobered at how dark Houston still was. So many unlit patches. So many broad areas without power.

I had to pay in the lobby of the garage I parked in instead of the exit booths because of the skeletal power system they were running on, and even in the lobby the employees were all fanning themselves in the dank, heavy air. Hobby isn't in the best neighborhood, but now the place looks deserted, like a ruin, with traffic lights dark, some hanging by wires still, store fronts unlit, street lights off. I had to stop at all three of the intersections you go through at Broadway and I-45 to get on 45 northbound. The signal lights weren't flashing. They were completely dark. It scared me.

The enormous light poles over the freeways are running, but again I was bothered by a difference. There's light, but nowhere near the level of illumination of surface, of underpass, of signage, as I'm used to. And it may be hypersensitivity on my part, after my time in the more pristine air of the Pacific Northwest, but the city, the entire city, smells like a stale drain. It's not rank, but it's pervasive and ubiquitous.

As I got to my street (the exit ramps to which are no longer under water, thank goodness), there were signs blown away, small trees and some tree limbs down, and one building severely damaged, but the general infrastructure seemed sound and lights were lit, traffic signals functioning. Still, the smallest things seem to glare at me. All the street light poles used to be straight. Now each of them leans at a slight, and slightly different, angle. It's a tiny thing, like I said, but it adds to the unsettlement I feel after seeing all of the large things. There is no haven of perfection. No place untouched.

Until I drag my luggage across my complex and up the stairs to my own unit. Open the door. Flip the switch, which actually turns on the lights. I go over and turn the thermostat back on and the air conditioner kicks in. I look around at all the things I left behind, and left in God's hands, because there was no way I could take care of them before leaving town. I open my refrigerator which doesn't reek because Tim cleaned the perishables out for me. I open my freezer and find the popsicles that have been in my freezer forever, and all of a sudden seem perfect.

I guess it's not untouched and perfect. I lost some food. My network seems to have forgotten that I named and secured it. What preparations I did make are still in place. But it's SO much better than it could have been. Nothing I own was damaged. My friends are all okay, and none of them suffered irreparable losses. Oh, God. I'm so overwhelmingly, unbelievable grateful, and at the same time I hurt to see that so many people were so hurt when I haven't been at all. I'm tired, like I said, so just about anything is going to make me weepy. But it does all make me cry all kinds of tears.

I have journals from my trip that I will post at some point, but now doesn't feel like the right time.

I'm just so glad to be home. I'm just so glad you guys are all okay.

Thank God.