7 Quick Takes Friday #43

See more 7 Quick Takes Contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

Since I spent most of the week sleeping -- well, at least evening and night and even an extra hour most days into the morning -- I am not certain that I have seven "events" to report, but I shall "dig" a little and see what I can come up with. Actually, I will make them short because I feel like sleeping already. It is this darn cold/flu/virus; I could sleep it off a lot more easily if I did not have to go to work every day! As for the seven takes, here goes:

1. Dinner with Shane and Lemony. This week was Lemony's birthday, so Donnie and I took her, Shane, and the grandkids to dinner at her favorite restaurant, Dona Ester's, in our little town of San Ignatio. We had quite a choice of authentic Merxican foods. If not anything else, this town is indeed authentic Mexican in many respects, not just in its food choices. Nathaniel sat beside me and chatted non-stop about bakugans, about which Grandma Beth knew very little and still knows very little (I cannot quite get my head wrapped around these newfangled toys) and battle plans, the latter of which he sketched out on a napkin for me. When it was time to leave, he mugged for my camera. Nikolina meanwhile slept and slept and slept, did not wake up at all during the entire meal (hm, seems she inherited that sleeping thing from her grandmother). Pleasant evening.

2. Tripping to San Diego. The next day Donnie and I left for San Diego. Padre Julio, a priest from Colombia, about whom I have blogged on this site earlier (see posts on Fr. Julio) had asked us to come see him in San Diego, where he had moved recently. When Padre Julio was a priest in our diocese, I had taught him English so that he could celebrate the English Masses. (I originally met him when he was celebrating our Spanish Masses, which is the Mass I usually attended on Sundays -- still do.) I was able to get free tickets to San Diego from all my frequent flying. Off we went, having obtained rather nice seats right by the door, or so I thought. It was freezing there, and so I was glad I had brought a warm hoodie sweatshirt for keeping warm! Cold aside, pleasant flight.

3. Dinner with Padre Julio. Once we reached San Diego, I called Padre Julio, who suggested that we meet at Anthony's Restaurant, a popular seafood restaurant on the harbor -- well, on land in the harbor. Thanks to the GPS we had brought with us and installed in our rental car, a Mazda that we quite enjoyed driving, we easily found Anthony's. Finding parking near Anthony's, however, was not nearly as easy a feat. It was clearly a popular restaurant. After several swings through the parking lot, we lucked out. Someone was leaving as we were approaching, and we were able to pull into the only open spot. I have no idea how Padre Julio found a space, but he did and, to our surprise, was already waiting for us inside. There were some interesting dishes on the menu but somehow we all felt like fish. So fish it was. That and some lively conversation, filling in the missing gaps in our information base since we had last seen each other. Please conversation.

4. Mass with Padre Julio. On Sunday, we put the GPS to good use again as we wended our way through San Diego to the church where Padre Julio was celebrating Mass, Cristo el Rey (Christ the King Church). We quickly realized that we were the only Anglos in the entire church -- gringoes, I suppose, would be the better term. Padre Julio was very happy to see us there and introduced me to his congregation as his teacher and us as "good gringoes" -- we were not quite sure how to take that except in the best of intentions as was meant by Padre Julio. After Mass, we parted wtih Padre Julio as he had to leave for Guadelajara and we got to spend a relaxing evening at our hotel. We had contemplated spending an evening on the town, but we know San Diego well from the days when three of our children were attending college there, so opted for a kick-back evening, instead. Pleasant rest.

5. It hit. On Monday, it -- the cold, flu, virus, whatever it is -- hit me, and it hit hard. I was wiped out before we even made it back from the airport. When I get sick, I crave sleep, something that I otherwise often get very little of. I was suddenly very tired, and it seemed like the long trip from San Francisco had never been longer. I am not sure if it seemed longer because I was not driving or would have seemed longer had I been driving; in either case, all I wanted to do was sleep. And so as soon as I reached home, I slept. All afternoon. All evening. All night. Pleasant dreams.

6. A week of work. I had grand thoughts of perhaps sleeping through the rest of the week as well, but that was not to be. Every day filled up with appointments before I left for home the previous day. No complaints will you hear from me about them for most were quite interesting appointments. Many people just wanted to talk about one thing or another. Several junior managers stopped in, wanting guidance on one or another topic or mentoring or just to talk. All the senior managers were out of town, so it seems that with the echelon of management between the junior managers and me gone, interaction between us took place on a several-times-a-day basis. (I will relate a joke about management and talking tomorrow; I am out of time for today.) Pleasant week.

7. Afghanis. The Afghanis who work in our organization, especially the Pashtuns, are delighted with the fact that I have now spent time in their country and that I have learned to speak some Pashto. They go out of their way to find opportunities to give me a chance to practice Pashto. For some reason today, I felt like an ice cream cone at lunchtime and stopped into Burger King where I had heard ice cream had just been added to the menu. The BK is across the street from my office, so it is often a gathering place at lunch for my colleagues. Sure enough, there were a few there today, too. Two of them were Pashtuns, and they immediately approached me, speaking Pashto. We ended up sharing lunch although I had not originally planned to eat lunch at all. These two are relatively new employees, so I got a chance to learn more about them. Pleasant company.

And now it is indeed night time. So, I will wish you all pleasant dreams.