Quote of the Day: “A numbness about the brain and heart — one we have experienced too often, but never get used to — had set in. Passers-by of numerous nationalities and ethnicities nodded to one another without speaking, but communicating volumes. Their body language and visages said they were Londoners — natives and transplants, residents and transients — united by a common humanity and understanding in the face of uncommon inhumanity.” — Barry Lorge, sports columnist for The San Diego Union and ESPN.com, in this column regarding “the incidents in London”
First I would like to wish a happy birthday to Lindy Davis, who turns 22 today (I think).
So what’s happened in the last week and a half? Quite a bit actually. I have to start with what happened on the last Monday of June…
We went out bowling with EDGE Corps, which I must say was a lot of fun. I hadn’t been bowling since the last time the Navs got Crenshaw for an After Navs. But the real story here has nothing to do with bowling. That’s not true, it does have something to do with bowling, just nothing to do with a game of bowling. Tim (my work partner) is all about doing hand stands. So he gets another guy to bowl between his arms as he’s doing a hand stand. Only problem is that Tim lost his balance and tried to readjust his weight. As he readjusted he moved right into the path of the oncoming bowling ball. The hit fractured his right forearm. I wasn’t there for all of this but I have seen it. Yes, that’s right folks, we got it all on tape. I would post it on the internet but the girl who took the video wants to send it to America’s Funniest Home Videos, so I’m going to have to talk her into it.
Now as funny and tragic a story this is for Tim we really need to be thinking about me here (hey, it’s my blog). Now that he has one arm he can’t do any of the heavy lifting for his job with conference services. All that gets given to me. He can still unstack chairs and do other light weight jobs so he’s still working but there’s so much less that he can actually do. I have to admit that it’s been a much tougher job since his injury. I’ve been fortunate that we haven’t gotten really slammed since then. Also, because of an unrelated event Tim can’t drive the pickup anymore, even further lessening his abilities. All around it’s just been a crazy turn of events.
The following work week as I mentioned was really light, and my time off last week was somewhat uneventful. I pretty much took it easy. I did go out to see Batman Begins which is a great movie. But there isn’t much to talk about until you get to July 4.
I did have to work on July 4. Last summer I had to go to school on July 4. It’s basically gone from a holiday I used to celebrate to just another Flag Day for me. But that night we climbed to the top of Ladybug Lookout (cheesy name, I know) and watched fireworks that were going up in all directions. It’s a whole new experience to see fireworks exploding just of the horizon. They’re just a small blip of color. There were a couple of displays that were closer than that so we did get a pretty good show (though they can’t do a grand finale to save their lives here in Colorado). It was a great way to start an eventful “weekend”.
Remember? My weekend is Tuesday and Wednesday here at the Glen. On Tuesday I went white water rafting down the Arkansas River. Our guide was this 6′10″ beast who lived in New Zealand for 5 years where he kayaked some pretty nasty water. We had an all guy raft so he let us go through some of the areas he normally can’t take people through. The company’s name was Noah’s Ark, run by Christians. All the rental stuff said “thou shalt not steal” on them. Before we left the safety guy said a prayer, and not just a “keep them safe” prayer, this was a “keep them safe and if they aren’t believers redeem their soul on this river” prayer. I thought I was at a revival with a prayer like that. The only bummer was that we did spend the better part of the day in the car getting there and coming back.
Ah, but now it’s time for the main event. You see for the past week or so we had been planning this special evening where we would honor the girls of NCP. So last night we prepared a formal dinner for them. On Monday we had given out invitations that told the girls to dress formally, to meet in the castle lobby at 5:30 PM and to not ask questions about what was going on. The guys went out to Goodwill and bought suits. I got a pretty snazzy tan suit (I can’t believe I just said snazzy and didn’t erase it). The whole thing, suit jacket, suit pants, shirt, tie, and shoes all cost me under $20. So awesome.
My job in all this, being the conference services man, was to decorate the Great Hall. That’s a tall order, but I think I did good with the whole “less is more” approach. Twice as I was setting up one of the girls walked in. The first time was on Monday when Kelsey walked in while she was working so there wasn’t much pressure. But Beki came by on Wednesday afternoon as the finishing touches are being made. She’s a great pianist so she was hoping to play the grand in the hall. I had to… slightly bend the truth to get her to leave. It ended up looking really nice. I’ll get some pics up with I get my hands on them.
All the guys were supposed to meet in the Great Hall at 4:00 PM to help setup. But I didn’t finish the room until 3:45 and I still needed to go home, shower and change. So I ended up getting there late. This is important because while I was gone all the assignments were passed out to people, and since some were more specific than others I got the easiest one. My job was to go downstairs to the castle lobby where we had asked the girls to arrive and escort them to the Great Hall. Awesome. I was actually thinking about requesting that job earlier but thought it would be too prideful of me to do it. So the time comes. Everything in the Hall is set. I walk down the stairs in my tan suit with my hair parted neatly down the middle and my facial hair cleanly trimmed. I’ll be honest, I’m looking good. I come down the stairs and it’s like I’m a rock star. The girls start screaming and taking pictures. I didn’t realize it at the time but I’ve been told by many of the girls that when they first saw me they all instantly thought “The Bachelor”. Anyway, I led them through Oriel Hall where there were three guys standing on either side of the entrance to the Great Hall (doors are closed). I tell the ladies that it would be our pleasure to escort them to their tables, I knock on the door, I pull one door while Jakar pulls the other and they all start screaming again. I guess my decorations were good.
After seating them all we began to serve them. While serving we had Blair and Christiaan playing piano and guitar. After the salad course we joined them when we brought out the main course. In case you’re wondering we did all the seating randomly (except for our lone couple - Mike and Ashley). The dinner was great. The AM and PM kitchen staffs came together and made the whole thing. What I’ve been told is that it was $26 per plate (it was less for the guys since we didn’t get salads). The dessert was perfect - fresh fruit (something we don’t see in our meals here) and some crazy good custard. After dinner we moved the tables out of the way and did a couple of hours of swing dancing. Now for those of you who aren’t already aware, I am a terrible dancer. And not just because I don’t know the steps. I just have no coordination with my feet. But I tried a little more than I have in the past and made a fool of myself as usual but still had a good time.
I don’t think I could have scripted it better. Our main goal was to honor the women and show them a good time, and we clearly succeeded there. We managed to get everything done on time. All the guys had a great time doing their parts. I have to say I’m glad we didn’t invite the team leaders and all the other leaders. I like them and all, but it would have been a much different atmosphere. I think this will be one of the things that will be remembered about this NCP. Not the dinner itself but the fact that the guys have been very intentional in making sure that we treat the women in the program like the daughters of God that they are. I’m sure it was on the hearts of a few guys when they got here, but it was put on all of our hearts after hearing the relationship talk from Karen. As a result we’ve become a close groups.
The one thing that’s been going through my head since last night is, “Why haven’t we done something like this for the Nav women at FSU?” Or maybe I’m just wondering why honoring those women hasn’t been as big a concern universally among the FSU Nav men. In any case, it’s going to be a drum that I’ll be beating this year, that’s for sure.
This coming week is exciting. Tomorrow night begins parents weekend. Tomorrow night will also be square dancing night, which when I did it last summer at U. M. Army I actually really enjoyed. Saturday I plan to spend time with my first ever piano teacher who moved out here a few years back. I haven’t seen her in years and it’ll be great to catch up. And of course there’s Jerry Bridges on Saturday night. So awesome. Yeah, so in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m having an amazing time. And I haven’t even said a word about what God’s doing in my life! Okay, I’ll have to get to that in a later post (that sounds awful, I know). Right now I’ve got to clean the Timothy House. Fun fun fun!
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