Monday, March 22, 2004
Life is made up of roughly 70 years, which can be multiplied by 365 to ring up a total of 32,550 days in an average life span. Most of these days are filled with the routine and mundane chores that are an integral part of the fabric of our daily habits.
Today would be very routine at school, but my mind knew that today was very different in one big way. I was anticipating my trip on Wednesday to Honduras. As soon as school was out I would be just like one of the kids who couldn’t wait to break and run. Run is exactly what I did in my car to various stores to pick up last minute items for myself and shop for a number of items on a wish-list from the Berkshire Hills School of Guanaja. I made the rounds from Price Chipper to Wal-Mart and purchased dry erase markers, regular markers, basketballs, a football and other miscellaneous items such as 100% DEET.
I had an invitation to Cynthia and Dale’s for supper and a repacking party, so that Dale and I could redistribute our weight to meet the 70 lb/suitcase requirement of the airlines. If you exceed the limit, you pay extra and our leader, Mr. Bob, was encouraging us to stay within the limits.
I wanted to stop by Ruth Suriner’s on the way to LaRoche’s and visit with her following the loss of her dad. I always thought he was a special guy, the way he would light up when you talked with him. I talked with her while she fielded phone calls. She has a good family support system. We had a good visit and I left to meet my appointment for supper. I try not to turn down any invitations to a home-cooked meal.
Cynthia has a way with food like an artist does with a brush. We sat down to a gourmet meal of good old Adventist Choplets, surrounded with parsnips and grilled asparagus. An iced drink and some kind of Hershey Kiss cookies to die for. This somehow distracted me from our main purpose, but Dale and I managed to pry ourselves away from the table and begin our repack assignment. We unpacked, weighed on Dale’s digital scale, and repacked again. Bob would have been proud. Although, maybe, he wouldn’t. He nicknamed Jim Cheney, Dale and myself as the Daryl Brothers, after the Bob Newhart comedy of “I’m Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl." I landed in bed at about 10:45 pm, tired and satisfied with the day’s accomplishments.