At 4:38 am little Jennalise was born. She's 8 lbs and "perfect", according to my son Jaemon, who was a little groggy from lack of sleep. More details when I return!

Grades are finished and posted on the web. I'll turn them in this morning, drop the Monster off at the sitter's, then catch the plane to Seattle for Friends General Conference. I'll be there a week, then back home in time to clerk Business Meeting a week from Sunday. I'm really looking forward to seeing old friends. Haven't been to an FGC Gathering in three years, nor a Midwinter Gathering in two years, so this will be a treat of spending time with many old friends. The only work I have to do is to report on the QUIT conference. I'm signed up for the chanting workshop. Why? Who the hell knows! I was surprised when I got back confirmation last month. It appears to have been my first choice! Go figure. Me, who never sings. I play music, but don't often sing. So this is going to be interesting.

 

If it's not a good fit, I'll bail and just enjoy having the mornings free. The afternoons are mostly business meetings, which I will attend and enjoy. The evenings are mostly talks. When I looked yesterday I didn't find any talks I would look forward to, so perhaps there will be a surprise there.

 

So my summer vacation begins tomorrow! Wahoo!

 

And Jennalise will surely show up next week. She and her folks are in my thoughts and prayers this week. What a wonderful little family they are! I will probably drive back up to see my new grand daughter the week after I return from FGC.

 

If you're a summer school student and are reading this, I enjoyed having you in class. Summer school is always intense, with barely time to catch your breath. Almost everyone did very well. If you didn't, perhaps you needed to take the class during the regular semester, when things are not so intense. You were all a good group this summer, which made the intensity of teaching you all easier. I hope the rest of your summer is good.

As I was driving to work this morning I thought about the wedding I attended this weekend. A lovely part of the ceremony was when the groom thanked the bride's parents for the qualities he loved in his new wife, and the wife then thanked the groom's parents for the things she loved in the groom. As I drove, I thought I ought also, as grandpa, say thank you to Jaemon and Tana, not just for the gifts they have given to each other, but for the gift they are about to bring into the world. Jaemon and Tana are gving a gift to the world in this new child, Jennalise. They are helping to bring new life in the world, and this child is a token, a small part, of the love they have for each other and their faith in the future. Every child is an indication that we have faith that the future will be better, even just a little bit.

 

May Jennalise reflect the faith and love of her parents and grand parents. Thanks Jaemon and Tana. As hard as these last few days are, they will be washed away when you see Jennalise's face, and hold her in your arms, and know that she represents your love and your faith in each other.

Put Elizabeth on the plane this morning. Got up at 5 am and drove down to Orange County John Wayne airport, then up to work. Gonna be a long day today. Too much work to do before taking off this weekend for Gordon and Mlaika's wedding up at Sierra Friends Center, then over to Berkeley for a meeting on Sunday, and perhaps Sunday night with Jaemon and Tana!

 

Jennalise is getting close now...

 

 

A little breakfast, then off to Quaker Meeting, where I'll meet Elizabeth. It'll be good to catch up with her. I think the last time she came to stay with me was probably five years ago. Lots of catching up to do. I've always said that if they ever made me the head of AFSC I'd want Elizabeth with me. She was the best damn HR person I've ever worked with. Whenever I had a problem I would call Philadelphia and she would get back to me as quickly as she could. My experience with HR folks has not be so good since!

 

The heat here has been terrible, though I live the warm weather. Yesterday it was 103 here in the afternoon. A good day for Monster's bath. He loves baths, or should I say he loves the time after bath. He thinks toweling off is a game, so I'll wrap him in the towel and rub him dry, they off he goes in a fit of corgi madness, raceing around the room only to dart full speed back into the towel again for more rubs. This goes on and on. He never tires of running into the towel and getting rubbed. He's done this since he was a puppy. I think it's his favorite game.

 

Well, time for breakfast...

First free weekend in a long time, with Elizabeth Stegner, my former HR specialist when I was with the AFSC, coming to stay a few days tomorrow. So all the little odd jobs are getting done: laundry, bath for Monster, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, etc. Yesterday I went over to my old AFSC office. They have sold the building and are moving to downtown LA. I think it's a good move, but it certainly was sad and bitter sweet going thru the old building. My former secretary was there and so we wound up chatting and rememembering most of the afternoon. It was good for me to do that, to remember how much I loved being there, and how well loved I was by the staff. I'm really proud of the work I did there!

 

Tomorrow Elizabeth gets here. We'll go to Quaker Meeting, then have lunch in Pasadena, then home. Monday I'm going to take her up to Arrowhead, where I have a meeting but where it will be fun to windows shop afterwards. On the way home we'll drop by the landing zone and i can perhaps introduce her to some pilots!

Okay, okay. So I don't often pass things on, but an English Professor friend of mine sent me these little gems from the annual contest and they had me rolling on the floor! Enjoy...

 

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners.....

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an erie, surreal quality, like when you're on
vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

 

And so Grandpa Joe signs off, like a one armed sign language interpreter...

 

Spent a lot of time this weekend doing Quaker stuff. Convened a memorial service for Ruth Kloepfer, who was the wonderful 90 year old lady who took care of Monster when her daughter, Ruanne, couldn't. Monster really loved Ruth, and she loved Monster. He was somehow gentler with her when she took him on walks. I think he understood how fragile she was. A few weeks ago she fell and broke her arm. She made it through surgery fine, and then was transferred to a rehabilitation unit to heal. One night she just died peacfully in her sleep. Both Monster and I will miss her.

 

Sunday was Meeting for Worship to do Business. It's the one Sunday a month when the clerk functions as pastor, helping the meeting to come to decsions on sometimes difficult sometimes trivial problems. We Quakers have an interesting process of trying to reach unity. All decisions are made by a model that says the meeting must come to unity on any decisions made. It sometimes takes us months. In the case of same sex marriage, it took us years, but we finally reached the decision about ten years ago to marry gay folk. Most people struggling with the issue don't realize many Quaker meetings have already reached unity on it. I'm so proud of my meeting for working through tough issues and, once decided, for moving forward with them.

 

Well, time to get ready to teach! Looking forward to next weekend with nothing to do, now that I've replaced the outside faucets!

 

 

At the end of today I'll be half-way through summer school, and it's not even summer yet! This was a difficult week, having worked very hard last week to get ready to clerk PYM Ministry and Oversight Meeting, and make sure the last minute touches were put on the conference on Torture at Guilford College in NC. Found out the conference was a huge success. Chances are good there will be seed money left for a follow-up conference next year. Now I need to decide if I want to stay involved, or just concentrate on being Presiding Clerk of PYM if I'm appointed in August. I've already resigned from being clerk of my meeting.

 

The apple tree I planted for Shar in the backyard began to bloom, beautiful blooms and lots of them. What a crop I'm gonna have of apples!

 

It was good to spend time with Jaemon and Tana last weekend, even though we didn't see much of each other. Sunday breakfast was wonderful, and they were able to keep me awake for a few hours each night before I pooped out and fell asleep. They make such a wonderful couple, well suited to each other. Tana is glowing with motherhood, and Jaemon is awash with nerves about the birth. Brings back lots of memories of his birth. Three weeks away now to Jennalise's birth!