evening.

we're sitting in the kitchen watching news and sipping wine. checking blogs and email. reading to dv, and not falling asleep, which i wanted to do at work after lunch.

i'm glad it's evening and i am at home.

elizabeth might well be sleeping off her unhappy run-in with bugs and kinks she picked up at dinner.

poor little girl.

and diana is in athens without us, probably a good thing for her productivity.

early

in athens, listening to news about ethiopia, and waiting for it to be late enough to call ruth, to go see her. not sure if this is wise, waiting. don't know why i feel i should wait. i'll be back, after all. should have called her yesterday but the day changed.

i've been in the hampton lobby online for about an hour, and when i first got online i got a google chat from e. i responded and never heard again from her.

their internet reliability is remniscent of mexico's.

early

we stayed unexpectedly another night here. david wants to do a few more things tomorrow and it didn't make sense for him to return, so i planned to leave early this morning to get to work.

i had trouble sleeping last night, and since about 3 am i've had ruth on my mind. i haven't had time to call her as we've been busy, but i wonder if i can have a cup of coffee with her in i wait a couple of hours.

hard to know. maybe i'll just go ahead and leave early.

david got here friday morning, i came in time for dinner, we met diana saturday morning and went to her

shopping for a home

we are in the selfsame aforementioned lobby, cell phone in same position at my left elbow, hoping that diana will return the three successive cell calls

oh elizabeth just im'd me

more later!

welcome to athens/

dv and i got here separately yesterday. i'm sitting in the lobby of the hotel sipping hampton inn coffee, cell phone on the armchair of the loveseat. david and diana looked at real estate to no great shakes, while i worked a full day and then hightailed it to exchange cars at the volvo/honda dealership for maintenance and on to I20.

i got here before 6:30, met david at the hilltop near our hotel, and we proceeded after a glass of wine to our fave hangout, the bar at 5 & 10. we waited for diana a little, but only a little, because she had had an early dinner with mommom and relatives and was to call us when she was done.

after having an arugula salad (yeah, the same one we had with e last time, with dates shaved celery), then roasted squash soup and then a great pasta with wild mushrooms and basil, we headed to the hotel ranch. where diana finally called. she had taken mommom home, and mommom wanted to talk, so she listened.

god bless her. them. us.

diana had cortona ppl in town so though she was glad to meet us somewhere, i had just washed my face and begged off, till breakfast. which we've already had.

so another day. june wants to have lunch at one, and cortona exhibit is at 3.

more later.

guess e still doesn't have internet access. maybe we'll find something to buy but it doesn't look hopeful unless there's an insider giving us a lead.

joy

driving into my parking lot at work from a meeting yesterday afternoon, i was on the phone with my sister in florida, discussing elizabeth's birthday when another call came in that i ignored. when it recalled, i looked and gasped, "gotta go, it's ELIZABETH" and had my first conversation with someone on the continent of africa.

i love her so much and was terribly happy she called me on her 25th birthday. as we spoke, i transcribed much of our conversation in an email to david, diana, ruth, hal, etc.

they hadn't had email access since she last blogged on the 24th, so she let me know how her first visit day on mission went, the patients they saw. and other stuff, her impressions, her birthday, can't think of what else right now...tried to call her from a land line which took some doing, but now i know the process.

she had asked me to cancel her t mobile account which i am in the process of doing right now. "it's the end of the world as we know it" is on the musak...interesting since i'm going to athens once this is completed.

t mobile account specialist is on the phone right now. he's cancelling it till the end of this billing cycle, 28th of january. he's changing the address for the final bill to walton way. well outside contract so no problems...they did try to do a seasonal suspension, but that's $10 a month and the max is 3 months, so the phone is not active in a few days.

i told the efm group about her call later. lydia said people crowded around her to touch her because she had blue eyes, and it was somewhat alarming. when i described their living quarters, lydia was perplexed till i remembered the school's name as bingham. lydia and tom taught at the other international school in addis. bingham she referred to as "the british school."

ciao!

today is 25!!!!!

Elizabeth's birthday - celebrated in Africa!!!!

Can't wait to talk to her.

run, run, run

that's how it feels sometimes.

i wanted to check my gmail for anything from e - nothing new - and enable her to more easily access my blog. which i really can't update right this mo, since it's practically 8:30.

dv and i went to dinner last night at calvert's with our friend dennis, diana's interviewee (unbenounced to him and almost exclusively fiction).

and first, mary and karin and i had two glasses of wine together.

gotta get to work. athens tomorrow!

starting over

yesterday i'd like to redo.

i accidentally posted on enroutetoethiopia using my newest blog so i deleted the entire shebang and have started over. chalk it up to inadequate multitasking. i knew i could limit viewers but the quickest solution was to start anew.

my main concern, and what woke me up this morning, was that i had commented on some politics in my church that i did not want to share with anyone but my immediate loved ones. after deleting the blog i viewed it again but it wasn't gone yet, and i had had no time to recheck....tmi, bien sur.

i had a busy, and largely unproductive, day at the salt mines yesterday. left the office at seven to meet dv for dinner at the french market grill, and we came home to watch the state of the union which i watched till i fell asleep. i think i got a few minutes past "madam speaker," so i'm interested in commentary and rehash which interestingly is not dominating my news links this a.m.

so here we are.

i'm so glad to see that danl and heather elizabeth have arrived and she posted so much detail. keep those cards and letters coming, skits malone!

dv and i are headed to athens this weekend for diana's cortona exhibit and to check out real estate.

well, time for me to investigate state of the union news and then read chapter 20 for thursday. acts of the apostles, 2nd half.