Dearest Rachel – To be fair, for me to describe last night thusly is to completely mischaracterize it. After all, while the fireworks displays that are part and parcel of the Fourth of July are meant to represent the clamor and fire of early modern warfare in which this nation was birthed (perhaps not unlikeContinue reading “Sleeping Through the War”
Tag Archives: festivals
Matsuri Yume
Dearest Rachel – Six forty-five. After a brief moment of wakefulness around four, I’m finally, actually waking up. “Oyaho.” Daniel, it seems, has been awake for an hour or so. And up until now, I’ve been the one to wake up first. I turn and open the curtains to the veranda – we’re still sailingContinue reading “Matsuri Yume”
With a Little Help
Dearest Rachel – Well, here we are. It’s wild to realize we’re still only about halfway through our trip around Japan at this point. But for the moment, we aren’t in Japan, which is likely to be more of a challenge for us than you’d think. As I explained earlier, we can neither read, speakContinue reading “With a Little Help”
A Place for Patriotism
Dearest Rachel – I remember the second time we went to Israel as part of the church group. We were in Jerusalem by the Wailing Wall as the sun set on Friday. Various groups – not tourists, but local Israelis, some religious groups, others quite clearly military units, as could be told from their variousContinue reading “A Place for Patriotism”
Walking Out the Door
Dearest Rachel – It really feels weird to simply walk out the open door and keep going, but that’s how things are this morning. The tiling team is in today to work on the backsplash, so they need to keep going outside, where they’ve got their table saw out to cut each piece to fit.Continue reading “Walking Out the Door”
Chick Magnet
Dearest Rachel – I doubt it’s only because he’s in town, but if I thought the girls would come over more often because he was, I’d invite Kevin to come back to the Chicago area on a more frequent basis. After all, this is the second time in a week they’ve been over, whereas it’sContinue reading “Chick Magnet”
A Tourist Barely One Town Over
Dearest Rachel – So here I am, wandering around this park in Schaumburg; I’ve been invited to SeptemberFest by someone I met over the app. Unlike my dinner with Ellen, I guess this is something of a date – at least, once she’s done working the bingo booth for the Lions Club. Assuming I canContinue reading “A Tourist Barely One Town Over”
Cornfest
Dearest Rachel – It’s the first Saturday in August, and you know what that means. Well, yes, they did serve food at the men’s Bible study this morning (you might recall that Oracio used to own – and still works at – a pizza joint. Yeah, pizza for breakfast, prepared on a grill. Things theseContinue reading “Cornfest”
Letters to Rachel 