community

we love our little piece of the "old tree" part of town. it is mostly quiet {save for the recent WyoTech admits that terrify us with their noisy engines & jacked up pick-ups} & our neighbors are polite. but we only know one household well, the rest just by name. being the somewhat shy folks that we are, we haven't hosted any block parties at our place yet, although i've been meaning to. last night seemed to change that.

we were in a bad place after receiving tragic news about losing someone we love. although the christmas tree was lit & the ornaments were sparkling, when the credits rolled for "national lampoon's christmas vacation" we sat around feeling mournful & empty. a lot of feelings of where-do-we-go-from-here & what's-the-point? i think brandon & i both knew it was going to be a painful evening as we processed this loss. 

suddenly we had a knock on the door from our neighbor, who happens to be the head honcho director of wyoming public radio. he was wearing his beat-up leather jacket, with his thick round beat poet glasses, & a black beret. he handed over a stack of CDs & a few beers, telling as he settled on the couch that he was in a bad place & needed our company. he must have sensed we were too & felt called to pay us a visit while we were all in pain. although we have talked over the fence {home improvement style} we don't know each other well, so this was a surprise. 

he was well on his way into drunkenness, but luckily is a pleasant drunk. he gave me strict instructions about which songs to play on each album, which were mostly bob marley and jerry garcia tunes. after a bit he invited us to his house to listen to his billie holiday vinyls. he is a talented photographer & his house is adorned with his favorite photos. after a tour of the house & his record collection {which is quite extensive} i decided to head home to make dinner, inviting him back to our place for spaghetti & meatballs. when he came over he brought two incredible photographs--taken literally off of his walls!  

over dinner he grilled brandon & i on every topic imaginable: politics, children, our parents, war, religion, our thoughts on general custer, & harvey. oh how he loved harvey! it was an interesting night to say the least. 

at 11PM we were exhausted & desperately wanting to head to bed. we boxed up his unfinished food & sent him on his way. collapsing into bed we both wondered if the past 5 hours were imagined. but we felt grateful that a neighbor we barely know felt comfortable to come to our house when he needed to be lifted out his sadness. his timing couldn't have been better.

when you're a celebrity

this weekend an unusual death occurred at scout lake, a place where brandon and i have spent a lot of time learning/perfecting our kayaking rolls and flat-water cartwheels. this is a small lake full of logs that people are always swimming out to, clambering around on like a jungle gym, and proving their brute strength by wrestling on the slippery tree remnants. last night an 18 year old boy drowned in this apparently safe, hazard-free lake. from the accounts given he was attempting to swim to a log and something happened (a cramp maybe?) that caused him to give up and attempt to swim back. he didn't make it to shore and his friends didn't get to him in time. as hard as it is to believe, the young man drowned in 12 feet of water.

now to make an incredibly awkward segue (is that an oxymoron by the way?) to the above title...

brandon was working with our kayak school out at scout lake today as we often do on the first day of camp. there he was approached by the news crews and interviewed. i can't upload the video to our blog, but here is a link to the video and his interview. they cut him off at a strange place in his dialogue that doesn't make a lot of sense, but he still looks handsome and knowledgeable about river safety.

go forth and be safe on the water.

pray for healing

my dear, wonderful friend laura's brother and his girlfriend were assaulted in ecuador last week. her brother, britt, was stabbed 18 times and is now going in and out of consciousness. he is currently back in the states and being taken care of at the hospital that their sister, amber, works at in southern california.
there are a lot more details here, but i just needed to get this out there and get people praying for his healing. please also pray for his girlfriend who was raped. there is reason to believe that britt was trying to stop the assault on his girlfriend when he was stabbed.