Am I Back?

If all has gone according to the original plan, I’m supposed to have arrived back in the states earlier today.  I’ll have flown in to Washington, DC on Ethiopian Airlines.  Once I get to say my good-byes and get all my kids off on their various planes home I’ll be able to take a deep breath and relax.  I’ll start making phone calls, if I can find a pay phone and if I still have minutes on my calling card, that is.

I guess I’ll need to get a flight home.

Soon, maybe even by now, I’ll be feeling that weird emptiness that happens when one goes from being constantly busy and constantly needed and never alone, to being in the place where the silence is uncomfortably deafening.  It’s like empty nest syndrome, only on steroids…

I’m probably starting to feel lonely.  I’ll shove my hands in my pockets and feel dirt in the seams – African dirt.  Even though I just got home, I think I’m probably longing to return already.

I might be home by tomorrow.  Unless Phil and his kids have met me here and then I’ll be hanging out with them for a few days.  I guess whenever I can get to a computer, I’ll let you know which scenario came to fruition.

(Posted in absentia, for the last time, at least for the last time this summer)

Happy Birthday, Alaska! :-)

 A different kind of fifteen! 

 Hope you have a great birthday!

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(Posted in absentia)

Happy Birthday, Jonathan

ARGH!

TWELVE!

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(Posted in absentia)

I Want a Communist Artifact!

Today my father, my sister Liz, and her daughter Jesse (yes, that’s the correct spelling), are off to China!!  How blisteringly exciting!  They are taking a 10-day guided tour which sounds absolutely fabulous.

The China they will see is undoubtedly much different than the one that I experienced back in 1982.  It will be a place in the middle of a new kind of revolution!  The big cities are neon bright with tall hotels and tour buses and modern vehicles.  It will be a place of women and men dressed in the latest fashions chatting on the newest cell phones.  There will be restaurants, clubs, and stores.  Tourists will abound, especially since Beijing will be the host for the latest summer Olympics, and I doubt that these tourists will have their hotel phones bugged and be followed around by their own squad of soldiers!

I have put in my request that I be brought a truly Chinese article or some sort of interesting communist artifact…perhaps an old poster of Mao himself?? 

Oh, or maybe an old set of accupuncture needles!  That’d be cool!  Ohohoh, or maybe some silk, or jade?  Wait!  I forgot that this trip isn’t about me! 

Have the best of fun!  Travel safely!  Take LOTS of pictures… 

Hike as far down the Great Wall as far as they’ll let you and as far away fromother people as possible and listen for mongol warriers galloping through the mountains.  You can hear them!  I swear I did…

I can’t wait to hear aaaaalllll about it!

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(Posted in absentia)

“Re: Essay and other such rubbish” – Part III

Since I’m gone I thought I’d have my nephew, Richard, in again as a guest blogger!  Here’s another offering from my nephew’s collection of essays.  That’s my nephew!  Putting the positive slant on yet another “negative” personality trait!

This one is on Sarcasm..

Sarcasm as a Second Language

 

“Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.”

                        -Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, 19^th century Russian fictional writer.

 

Did you know that I am multi-lingual? Not only do I speak English, pig-Latin, and New Zealandish, I also speak sarcasm. This wonderful language serves as a happy medium between the polite refutation and outright condemnation we are forced to shovel upon the idiocy that envelops us. Through sarcasm, we are able to eviscerate our moronic contemporaries, as opposed to politely and gently correcting their blatant and unforgivable lack of intelligence, without crossing over the boundary of downright meanness. We save our mean comments about the person for our close friends and family. The beauty of sarcasm lies in the fact that the people subject to your wit generally are too dense and slow to understand your true feelings.

            Another facet of the language of sarcasm is its use between two or more native speakers. Those fluent in this tongue can often carry on entire conversations with each other about their peers without these unwashed masses of idiots realizing what is going on around them. The difficulty in this resides in the fact that one must sift through the maddening crowd of morons to find one truly intelligent person who shares this gift, no easy task, for, as I have come to conclude, only one out of every thirty people or so qualifies. That is why the best alternative for we intellectuals is solitary, urban hermitage.

            There are several dialects of sarcasm. The first, traditional sarcasm, is most prevalent in the middle-aged, and tends to tread between the boundaries of politeness and meanness fairly evenly, reflecting neither too much softness nor too much open harshness. The second, reactionary sarcasm, is spoken almost exclusively by the old, and generally borderlines on razor sharp meanness. This dialect tends to focus more on teaching its subject didactic elements and improving its subject’s behavior as opposed to just openly mocking him. The final dialect, post modern ridicule, resounds both loudly and irritatingly from the youngest sect of the species. This dialect does not even try to mask itself, crossing over the line of nastiness in almost every instance, and rarely, if ever, reflects either intellect in presentation, or discretion in subject. It is because of this final dialect that we who speak sarcasm are looked upon as disrespectful little cretins, when in reality, we simply use sarcasm as a tool to prevent use from slapping senseless the halfwits around us.

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(Posted in absentia)

Happy Birthday, America

It’s always kind of weird to celebrate the fourth of July in a foreign country.  Especially in countries where people are constantly watching you, like they will be in Malawi. 

I took red/white/and blue tablecloths, some r/w/b star necklaces, and little U.S. flags.  I think we’ll make all the food be r/w/b at lunch and maybe sing happy birthday.  But that’s it.  I don’t know that Malawians would understand us making a big fuss out of our country’s birthday.

Even though I often leave her, I love America.  She’s not perfect, but the only reason she’s not perfect is because people live there.  But I love Americans, too.  As individuals they are the most generous and giving.  They are free-thinkers.  They are full of ingenuity.  They love to work and love to play.  Their interests are as varied as the people themselves are.  America is a land of opportunities.  With enough drive, pretty much anyone can become pretty much whatever they dream to be.

So, from near the heart of Africa, while eating red, white, and blue, food, I wish you, America, a happy birthday.

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(Posted in absentia)

Dean Loves Megan

London graffiti that caught my eye.  This one was taken last summer.

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(Posted in absentia)