Trippin': The Week(s) In Thanks

Sitting comfortably during a 2-hour layover at the Atlanta airport allows a peaceful window during which to blog a post of thanks.

It’s been a few weeks since a gratefulness post, and yet the spirit behind this year’s resolution to dream and be thankful has been strong throughout.

I shared all about the continuing good fortune with math tutoring. Over a half dozen students have met with me, and I feel myself becoming more competent for them with each passing week.

The season-ending basketball banquet is always a treat, since the coaches and our wives get a chance to spend time together. A handful of parents had found my “profile of a champion” season recap and it gave us a fun chance to reminisce. The team pitched in for gifts for Coach Short and me, and I was honored to receive mine (and a little thank-you speech to boot!) from Alex Prus, who rightfully won the team’s  sportsmanship award.

After some uncertainty, I was able to get into a league that Jack’s co-commissionering (is that a word?). The results were a pleasant surprise, I got a fun roster of players including four Cy Young caliber pitchers.

Hairspray musical rehearsals have started to take on that family feel for me. The dancers and chorus singers work so hard! A lot of times my role has been to provide a solo voice, and then I get to walk around to other parts of the building where complicated dance numbers are being choreographed and rehearsed. It’s a pleasure to just be an audience for them. We have a lot of youth in the cast, and the energy is amped. I hear that 400 tickets have sold for the 11 performances so far, still six weeks away from opening night. The inspiration from the other actors has got me singing, shimmying and reciting lines in the shower every morning (mostly in my head, for Dena’s sake).

This is smack in the middle of a two-week stretch where Dena and I are mostly apart.

This week’s been my early birthday present from Dena, meeting up with Jack who drove to Phoenix from California to cross an item off my bucket list – seeing the Cubbies in spring training. The weather was clear, sunny, room-temperature cozy in the evenings. Phoenix is mostly bug- and humidity-free. We saw two games, and in the most stunning development by far, the Cubs won twice. No, they didn’t just win. They won by two shutouts. Didn’t give up a run. I don’t know what the odds are of this rebuilding team winning two in a row during the season, but I’d bet my left lung that they won’t pitch eighteen straight scoreless innings after Opening Day.

I love to bask in the small moments of a vacation. During the second game we had lawn seats just beyond the left field wall, watching Alfonso Soriano sort-of paying attention to the action. By and by some combination of the direct sun and the speed of baseball caused the crowd to thin. So I find myself able to lie on my back at a major league event, drinking in the sun and sounds. I had to call Dena at the office and tell her what I was experiencing.

I kept in touch with the team at the office, and the ship continues to sail along at a healthy clip during a stressful week of final product testing. I had a chance to give a presentation about what my unit does to a group of new employees. It sinks in that we have four members with over 30 years of experience. What did I do to deserve this? Nothing. All I can do is walk into work every day with a spirit of humility and appreciation.

I can’t understate how great it was to spend a week with my brother. Jack pointed out that it’d probably been our longest stretch together alone since before I was married. And we did the things we’ve done our whole lives, poking fun at the absurd, feasting comically on make-believe scandals, inventing a new religious denomination, laughing our teeth loose at 21 Jump Street. Had our fair share of heart-to-hearts. The only thing missing from our youth was the conflict.

Dena’s mission trip to Reynosa, Mexico begins tomorrow morning. We attended a commissioning service and I got a chance to see this crew of primarily women and children who will be helping deaf children for a week. Dena’s role is to develop a mural that will be painted on the wall of their school. I’m eager to see the final product. But most of all, I’m eager to see her.

We spent a typically long and patriotic day together serving as election judges in the March primary, then rang in our 14^th wedding anniversary the following day.

So the past few weeks have been relatively quiet in the blogging sense, but fresh with continued good fortune, the optimism of more to come, and a grateful calmness that everything’s going to be all right.