Due to the increased ant populations in our home, I have had nightmares of ants attacking me and/or our home four nights this week. One of these was after we watched The Firm, and the ants were being controlled by the mob, our house was being bugged, and we were attempted to combat the ants silently, without making it obvious. Weird.

And, tonight when we ordered dessert from the restaurant, my plate showed up with about thirty ants on it, with just a few eeking onto my cake. And Stephen’s? None.

It’s like they know how much I hate them.

“The whole purpose of places like Starbucks
is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever
to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee.
Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc.
So people who don’t know what the heck they’re doing or who on earth they are
can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee
but an absolutely defining sense of self:
Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.”

–Tom Hanks as Joe Fox in You’ve Got Mail

I can relate to this.  I could use a cup of coffee that comes with an absolutely-defining-sense-of-self moment.

Prayers, please?

Kue Kue is a friend of a friend; she is Karen and lives in Boise, Idaho. She is from Mae La refugee camp, where she lived for about four years before being resettled to the US in 2007 with three of her children.

Her husband and four additional children have been lost in the paperwork of resettlement and have not been able to join her yet.

She took all the right steps and has legally come back for a visit. She’s in Mae Sot now, visiting her husband and kids. Her youngest was seven when she left and is now eleven!

How does this involve us?

We’re attempting to help. We admittedly have no power in the realm of resettlement, but we are at least going to meet with a caseworker and see where things went wrong and if there’s something they can do.

We’re meeting today at 2:00pm our time.

When it comes to paperwork, big bureaucracy, and refugees, things get very muddy. So we’re just praying for a miracle.

When we leave our house for any amount of time, things take over. Sometimes its little lizards, sometimes bugs, sometimes ants. Coming back from America in January, we found a disturbing number of cockroaches upon our return.

Well, three. And that was enough to disturb me.

But we also found ants. For the past few weeks, we have found a swarm of ants a few times a week inside of our home in various places. Stephen is starting to talk about them potentially being in the walls, in doors…

I’m getting concerned.

Somedays it just feels like they are winning.

He’s always been presented as a legend to me.

If you visit Dumas, Arkansas, he has a tab in every store, it seems. He has visitors at every hour of the day, and he gets hellos at every restaurant.

But he lived, there, right? For years, even, in a small town. Not too surprising.

And Little Rock? He’s a big deal there, too.

But then we visit Greenville, Mississippi, to eat at the infamous-to-the-Puryears original Doe’s Eat Place. And they know him there, too: every waitress, every cook.

We visit Gatlinburg, and oh, do they know him there. They see a million tourists a year, but Papa Doc leaves a mark. There’s a line for ten feet outside of the Donut Friar, with guests waiting in frigid weather, but he’ll make them wait to get an update on Papa Doc and give us a box of donuts for free.

And now I’m impressed.

Stephen has always spoken so highly of his Papa Doc. Even when we were friends, I could see he shaped so many of Stephen’s childhood stories and was clearly a legend in Stephen’s mind.

He had recipes from restaurants all over the country, simply because he walked into the kitchen and asked charmingly. He visited far-off countries while most people his age were resting. He retired how many times while he continued to work from home?

He’s just as wonderful as Stephen always painted him to be. He was just as friendly, had just as many wise stories, and was just the loveliest old man.

And everyone knew him as Doc, which was just icing on the cake.

Now, we’re celebrating his life from so far away.  We’re grieving, so far from Dumas, so far from Greenville, and so far from Gatlinburg.

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.”
Mark Twain

“And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over,
he and the 300 men who were with him,
exhausted yet pursuing.”

Judges 8:4, ESV

I bought a new pair of jeans while we were in the States, and I officially think I might like them too much.

My first hint was that for two weeks straight I wore them four of five days to work. It doesn’t help that every time I wear them someone says it looks like I’ve lost weight.

…Take into consideration that the Karen comment on weight most every time they see you. I just prefer to be told I’m getting skinnier rather than fatter; particularly if the comment will be made either way.

But when do you like a pair of jeans too much?

Twice now, we have been riding the motorbike when Stephen will swerve to avoid a dog or someone will jump out in front of us–not uncommon, mind you–and my first thought will be something along the lines of: “Oh, please don’t wreck: I don’t want a hole in these jeans!”

Maybe I need to sort some priorities.

We were choosing a movie to watch on Saturday night and had narrowed it down to two: The Firm & Pelican Brief. (I guess we were in a ’93 rut?)

Stephen: “Well, he commits adultery in this one, and that really bothers you in movies. But her boyfriend dies in this one, so you’ll either be sitting there thinking, ‘What if Stephen commits adultery?’ or ‘What if Stephen dies?'”

Wow. He knows me too well. I totally do that.