the moments which become a day

I was out of bed before 8:30 of my own accord. A mild miracle.

***

I learned the the word "dwell" (in Psalm 25:13 "His soul shall dwell at ease") means "lodge in goodness'' in Hebrew. My soul is lodged in God goodness. Like the splinter in my finger.

My soul was put at ease (for a few minutes anyway....I am rather un-steadfast...)

***

JP, an academy teacher, asked me to speak about the northeast of America to his 6th-ish grade geography class. I spent 40 minutes boasting of the merits of Bucks County and the surrounding territory (surely Bucks County must be the nucleus of the known world?) On Sunday, a list of questions, submitted by the students, was waiting on my door.

Some of the questions were as follows:

What is the most beautiful sight in that area? (the orange and red trees in the fall)

What is your favorite American football team? (I am too busy to care about football....but I do enjoy a live baseball game on a cool summer night eating peanuts and twizzlers)

Have you been to NYC many times? (yes..when you look up in central park you can't tell you are in a city...and their is a wonderful gourmet grilled cheese restaurant..and who doesn't like grilled cheese?)

What is your favorite fast food place? (I don't eat fast food. This was a bitter disappointment to the two boys in the class.)

What do you think the Northeast has that the rest of America doesn't? (sarcasm. a completely manic life style. water ice. soft pretzels. a megalopolis per Wikipedia. the Jersey shore)

Does your state have a main song and can you sing it? (we probably do have a song but I don't know it. Although I did consider belting out the theme song from "The fresh Prince of Bel- Air". Everyone from Philadelphia at least knows it, so it's sort of a main song.)

It has to be very cool to have people from the countries you are learning about to give you their personal accounts. A living geography class.

***

Bed 16 asked me for nail clippers. We didn't have any on the ward so I started cutting his nails with my bandage scissors. Three nails into it, I just broke out in a fit of laughter. Partially completely grossed out, partially amazed that I was cutting a 62 year old Liberian man's fingers with my bandage scissors, I surrendered the scissors and let him finish the job.

***

Bed 17 looked perplexed.

"Why do you keep putting your hand under that machine."

He was referring to the antibacterial lotion machine stationed in the ward. He didn't know what it was and could not understand why I was constantly putting it on my hands.

"It's soap without water."

His confusion ended.

***

Reading 11 year old Tambuh, who is the sweetest boy with a very gentle spirit, a story and creating different voices for each character in the story, I remembered how fun it was to be in plays in high school.

***

I showed Tambuh and ALfred, two patients, the above pictures of my brothers. The pictures reminded me how much I miss my them. They are just so fun. And they make me laugh hard. And they don't mind that my jokes generally aren't funny.

I have to say, it's good that my parents raised us in a laid manner. We would broke rigid parents.

This week I was laughing when I thought about the "Doritos Commercial" Ben directed last fall. I was the videographer and assistant stunt director.

The commercial consisted of him and Josh using their best ninja moves as they fought over a bag of priceless chips. The climactic moment came when the fight lead to the roof and Ben plummeted ( or rather, jumped off the roof) to the ground in mild defeat. My parents were gone while we were filming, and we all agreed the dragging our pillows and couch cushions to soften Ben's plummet was a perfectly logical idea. (I mean...we never did that....)

I can't wait to hang out with my brothers in 8 weeks.