7 Quick Takes Friday #66

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

It is truly incredible how quickly time can pass nearly unnoticed. That is what has happened with the quick takes series. When I looked at my last post, it was from the end of July! Really? Two months seem like merely two weeks. Well, since those two months have seem some extensive activities, let me pick just a few to share, seven actually.

1. One of the most interesting trips I have had in this two-month period was to Nebraska where I met with our branch there. One of our specialists, whom I have sent to Afghanistan for consulting several times now, introduced me to his sister, and we all went to dinner, where the most incredible story of their escape from Afghanistan was shared. If any of you have read the Kite Runner, you would have found many details familiar because of the great similarity between the stories. It is simply unbelievable what people have had to go through in order to escape from Afghanistan over the border to Pakistan and then onward. (Those whose stories I know, of course, went onward to the USA.) Most unbelievable is that the father of my employee went back to Afghanistan when Kardezai came into power to help the new government. He holds a high post; therefore, for his safety I can give no more specific details. All I will say, then, is that there are people who have challenges in this life, and then there are people whose challenges are so extreme as to appear somehow to be beyond life.

For those with an interest in the challenges of living in Afghanistan and leaving Afghanistan, there is a great but haunting movie, called Kandahar. The movie is about a Canadian-Afghani woman who is trying to reach Kandahar to help her sister, who is severely depressed by the events taking place there. I don't want to give away the ending, so I will say no more than that it is worth watching, very information (a semi-documentary), but with a heart-rending ending.

2. In August, I tripped to Washington, DC, for two different business events. While I cannot go into details of either business event, since both events were closely associated with US government affairs, I can say that one meeting took place at the Pentagon. For some reason, the general who was leading to the meeting decided that he liked me, and after the meeting, he asked me, "Do you want to see a really cool room?" Well, who could say no to that? The room he showed me is one that appears in movies from time to time (in which the directors guess at what it might look like). The directors have portrayed it in such interesting ways that now the Pentagon has hired one of them to redesign the room in keeping with the movies! (Life is stranger than fiction sometimes.)

3. The very next week, I ran back eastward almost to the same location: Baltimore, Maryland. There we had a meeting of all our branch managers. The last time we all met (we do this twice a year) was in Hawaii. At that time, there was an earthquake in Japan that, as you probably all recall, resulted in a tsunami there and in Hawaii. If you remember the third week of August in the Washington-Baltimore area, you will probably recall that on Tuesday there was a historic earthquake that caused both damage to building and concern to individuals. (In California, earthquakes are business as usual, but not so on the East Coast.) Then, at the end of that week, Hurricane Irene arrived. We all wondered how much of this was really only coincidence -- where we all meet, the earth unsettles itself. Hm...our next meeting is to take place in Texas in the spring. Flash floods or tornado? I wonder which it will be!

4. A really unique thing happened in early September. Donnie and I took our first vacation in years and years. We decided to visit my relatives in Maine. Unfortunately, my brother, Keith, with whom we had planned to stay, was sent by his employer on business to California (not far from where we live) the very same week! We ended up staying at St. Anthony's Franciscan Monastery, a truly inspirational place, in Kennebunkport, Maine, not far from all my relatives. While there, we took the cog railway to the top of Mount Washington in NH, home to the world's worst weather (a mild day when we were there: winds at 83 mph, 28 degrees, moderate sleet, and covered in clouds -- of course, it was only the beginning of fall; there is plenty of time for the weather to grow its normal worse). On a different day, we took the sunset cruise on Lake Winnipesaukee with a friend from my high school graduating class. Of course, we also got to to visit scads of relatives, eat a wicked amount of lobster (including lobster rolls, lobster pizza), and spend hours with a "lost" GPS in the backwoods. I also enjoyed the early morning Masses each day before we set out for one or another point. Ironically, we never made it to the beach even though we were walking distance away! Go figure!

5. On the way home, we spent a day in Boston. (We flew into and out of Logan Airport there.) En route to Boston, we stopped in Boxford and had lunch with another high school chum, who had married and moved to that area. It was great fun, catching up on a couple score of missed years. Then, in Boston, we picked up our older daughter, Lizzie, in town from South Carolina for a conference and met a common friend from Colombia for dinner at the harbor. We stayed just a couple of miles away from the restaurant, but our GPS took us on a two-hour (!! no exaggeration !!) drive to get there. Fortunately, we had left significantly early, but we arrived significantly late. Our friend explained to us why a GPS works so poorly in Boston: all the underground roads really confuse it because it keeps losing the satellite signal. All is well that ends well. We got back to Lizzie's hotel and our hotel easily by turning off the GPS and using our friend's written directions.

6. I no sooner got back home than I had to take off for Madrid, Spain, where I had some business to take care of. one of my employees (a Spanish speaker, yes!) came with me, as did the director of another division. We met with counterparts in Toledo (and learned the supposed origin of the expression, holy Toledo), an immensely beautiful city that looks today much like it was portrayed by El Greco. We also met counterparts in Alcala, childhood home of Cervantes, creator of Don Quixote. And, of course, we did spend some time in Madrid, where, on a positive note, I was able to attend daily Mass and experience some of the local Spanish dialect, and where, on a negative note, my credit cards were compromised and had to be replaced. (I won't go into that story; it was rather annoying.)


7. I just got back and, surprisingly, was fortunate enough to be able to get today off from work. (I have a lot of annual leave that I have to use before the end of the year, so I am looking forward to some more leave some time this month, work permitting.) It being First Friday, I spent the day at our local St. Francis Retreat Center, where Fr. Philip did a beautiful lecture, Mass, and contemplative session and where I got to spend time with friends who regularly attend First Friday. So, while the week has been hectic, the ending was calm and peaceful. A great way to start the weekend.

I wish you a pleasant weekend, as well!

7 Quick Takes Friday #45

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

1. Earlier this week I described the "first" day of this week: Saturday. On Saturday I went to the ball conducted each year at our organization. (You can read about my attire dilemma here: Going to the Ball. The attire decision was not the only dilemma the ball presented. Upon arrival, I learned that I had been seated at one of the VIP tables beside the assistant in the CEO's office with whom I have been warring for the last three weeks: he has retroactively changed per diem on some of my employees after they have returned from expensive travel locations in order to save costs. It is completely illegal, and I have sent them to the legal office, in addition to carrying on some rather vociferous conversations with the assistant by email. Oh, joy! I was going to get to sit beside him for the entire meal. Surprisingly, it worked out okay. I made an effort to put aside differences for the evening -- and so did he. While at the ball, I got an urgent message from our folks in Afghanistan; documents I had sent earlier had not made it through and were needed immediately. So, like Cinderella, I left the ball early, but, at least, I managed to hold onto both shoes until I reached home. En route, I stopped at my office and re-sent the documents. Right before I left, the dancing started. I spent a few minutes dancing with the head of one of our employee committees, another case of putting aside difficulties since this person I had removed from my directorate last spring. (Another, less-demanding, directorate picked up the employee, fortunately.) It was more than just setting aside hostilities; the employee has come to grips with the understanding that the skill set needed for the complex job in my directorate had not yet been acquired and so, finally, had accepted the transfer as a positive, not a negative, action.

2. My experiences at Mass on Sunday were interesting and a little out of the norm. I already blogged about the man in need of a hymnal/missal: It Was a Small Thing, Really. Fr. Ed always asks if we have any visitors, and because our mission is one of those places that tourists love to visit, we almost always do, and they often come from distant states and, quite often, from foreign countries. Sunday was no different. Fr. Ed queried each person who raised his/her hand as to origin, but he missed the man in the pew in front of me. (I usually sit very near the rear of the church, and it was a bit far for Fr. Ed to see.) So, being an inveterate introvert, I hailed the man after Mass and learned that he was from Kalispell, Montana and, of course, knew where Hamilton, Lizzie's birthplace, is located. It was an interesting conversation and became even more interesting when I learned that he might move here. One never knows what is going on in the heads of the people sitting one pew ahead of you!

3. Sunday evening I took off on a crazy flight from West Coast (California) to east Coast (Arlington, Virginia.) A two-hour flight followed by a two-hour layover (Phoenix) followed by a four-hour flight followed by a two-hour layover (Philadelphia) followed by a one-hour flight. Finally, I landed. I suppose it is a sign of the times that in Reagan National Airport (ironically so named, considering that Reagan did not want National Airport enlarged and modernized) outside Washington, D.C. there were no working faucets or air dryers in the women's room that turned out to be my unlucky choice the morning of my arrival.

4. On Tuesday, I joined three colleagues in briefing a large group of generals and admirals at the Pentagon. The briefing garnered kudos, perhaps because we had rehearsed the briefing -- twice. The most difficult part of that long morning, for me, was not the briefing itself but rather the constant need to check my urge to cough. I am still trying to get rid of the mold of whatever it was that crawled out of the air conditioning, sneaking past the one or two wispy cilia I still have in my bronchial tubes and taking up residence in my lungs, a couple of weeks ago when we were visiting Padre Julio in San Diego. The room at the Pentagon was small; there were many people; all were silent and listening, except for some occasional tough questioning. Any rustle of paper brought all eyes to the person doing the shuffling, so you can imagine the effect of a cough ricocheting off the front wall and ping-ponging to the back of the room. I devoured three full rolls of Hall's cough drops in an effort to tame my excited cough mechanism.

5. Ah, Wednesday! A great day! First, I could sleep in. I had no appointments or meetings in the morning! Yippee! I did have to check out of the hotel at noon, but I could do that in a leisurely manner. Prior to my 1:00 meeting, I was able to accomplish quite a bit of email catch-up and calls that had been put off for days. It seemed like order was returning to my life. And then my life was rolled back 27 years. In 1983, when I first moved to Washington to work at the US Department of State (where I stayed until 1989, when I moved to California), I left the kids with Donnie while I looked for good schools and proper housing, not an easy task in a city about which I knew little. Not wanting to stay alone in an apartment (proving that I am an inveterate introvert), I moved into a large house with four college students, two of whose parents owned the house but were assigned by State Department to South Africa at the time. That made five of us: two guys and three gals. We have remained in touch all these years, but the only I have seen since in person has been K. Lizzie lived with K and her family during her senior year, earning her board and room by babysitting K's kids. (We had moved farther south by then, and Lizzie wanted to graduate from Washington & Lee High School where she had been since freshman year; K lived in the W&L district.) Right after Donnie and kids arrived from Pittsburgh where they had been living (and I with them before my transplantation to DC) D and M married each other, a surprise to the rest of us. Donnie took their wedding pictures, and we reminisced about that. C and S have remained in touch, and S lives in San Diego, so we are state-mates. It was a fun evening, less boisterous than in our early days because we all had to work the next morning and, well, because frankly we are all a bit older. The evening began with Indian food for dinner, blossomed into a round-robin telephone call with S in San Diego, and ended with my spending the night with K before she took me to the airport Thursday morning. (In photo, from left: C, me, M, D, K.)

6. Thursday morning put an adrenaline-and-tears end to the pleasantries of the night before. Shock, really, was the state I began the morning in, and I am still in shock. A good friend and the leader of our Bible Studies program, I learned through an email, had simply not awakened in the morning. His wife has been quite ill, and he has been her caretaker. No one, including the doctors, ever thought that he was ill. Now he is dead, and no one knows why. The funeral will be on Monday. It was a sad, numb day -- all the way home through all my return flights and drives. I still do not know what to make of it. I have now received calls from several people, all of whom are in the same state as I am. Sr. Maria was the one who learned what happened, but even she does not know why, just what. Of course, too, we are all concerned about the sick wife, who is also a friend of ours. Her daughter will be taking care of her; that much is clear since the daughter lives at home with her. One thing gives me consolation. Last year, when he and she celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and, being on a very limited income, had no plans for a party or eating out, let alone traveling anywhere, I learned that their anniversary was on the evening of our Bible Studies class, which my friend was prepared to lead that day. So, without telling him, I ordered Middle Eastern food from the city near where I work (his favorite food and not obtainable in the town where we live) and brought it back, along with a cake, to celebrate the anniversary there. As luck (and mybe more than just luck) would have it, Fr. Ed worked late that day, so he joined us in the celebration. I know that my friends enjoyed the surprise very much. Little did I know that they would not make their 51st! How happy I am that I could make their 50th memorable! I am also more committed than ever to being thankful for every day I have, knowing that none of us know which of our days will be our last, and to making the most of each day for the glory of God because each day that passes is a day we don't get back while the days before us are numbered. That is how my friend lived. He was an example for all who knew him.

7. If Thursday was not enough of a shock, I got a further electrifying input at work today. A number of employees and I are on salary supplements because our pay scale is not in keeping with the average for our field while our jobs are more demanding than most in our field. I learned today that effective immediately all salary supplements would be cut by 2/3. I have a salary that is among the highest in our organization so I cannot complain because I will be in better shape than most, but it will take so belt-tightening to manage expenses -- and the timing is not good since I am still helping Shane and Lemony in the wake of his taking a lower-paying job after being fired because of Nikolina's medical bills: Clan under Siege). I spent part of today giving the bad news to people and the rest of the day getting the paperwork in so that at least they can get the 33% pittance. Well, at least, we all have jobs. Not everyone can say that. While my employees were shocked, they were nonetheless grateful that they are employed. One must look at the bigger picture and, as Pollyanna would say, find something to be glad about. I am not only glad that I have a job but also that I have such terrific employees who also look for the "glad" in their lives.

Hoping that you have a pleasant weekend -- quiet, calm, and no shocks! Be glad!