Bated...and Switched

oooh, what a surprise! overcast and drizzly rain. again.

no lawnmowing today!

as previously metioned, i continue to pass Leonard St. and wonder if Paul and Kat are home and whether or not I can bum dinner and a beer off them, only to be pulled short at the empty realization that they are gone. there is a sense of loss.

but there is a great balance. last night, on a meander through the coffeeshoppe, a young lady caught my eye, grinned, and said hello. being of tremendous mental agility and posessing the response times of a caffienated leopard, I gave her a grin, a nod, chalked it up to freshman uncertainty and my own commanding presence.

four-and-one-half steps later, as i caught a chair leg with my left toe and began a graceful in-flight path reorientation, my astounding powers of perception indicated that I should, in fact, recognize this person.

several minutes of sorting later, with surgical precision i deduced that i definitely should know this girl. from somewhere. earlier.

and then i observed with the keenest discernment--the Ruaha National Park sticker on the laptop computer! aha!

i should know this person from Tanzania.

Tanzania. Tanzania...

Tanzania Program...

[click...click...click...click...fizzle......flatline beep.............]

[click...]

"Hiram...is that Chera M from Tanzania?"

"why yes dan. i think it is."



so. we lost Paul and Kat to Tanzania, but we got Chera. And, she recognized me in a moment of looking up from her studying, after an absence of two years, somehow picking me out of the hundreds of students who have revolving-doored through the campus next door to their home over the past eight years of Tanzania programs. pretty impressive.

and if you haven't caught on, Hiram Ring and Alex Scott are in town, and Hiram and I put on a little guitar-and-djembe concert in Houghton's coffee shop. it rocked out. we rocked out. something. it was a grand ole time. if you haven't heard Hiram, he's the Jack Johnson of Western PA. and Afghanistan. Folksy, bluesy, swingin', his lyrical talents are by turns honest, poetic, and fun. definitely a cut above your standard coffeehouse share, and two or three cuts above your standard Christian coffeehouse share for depth of lyricism and creativity.

see Hiram Ring Dot Com and give a listen. My personal picks are "Play Switch", "To Be A Swallow," "Breathe Deep," a sea shanty entitled "Last Tide," and the one about the car...

check him out!