Sisters and a Very Bad Night

So I saw both of my sisters at Mom and Dad's, and then both of them came to visit me, which is statistically astonishing, since in the past we've gone for a couple of years between times together.

Rebecca and Rod had some speaking engagements in Rod's hometown of Seattle, but Rebecca saw a brief break in the schedule and brought the train down to see me. We picked blueberries, took naps like old grandmas, talked a lot, went out for breakfast twice, and had a girls' outing at the new coffee and book place, Max Porter's, in Junction City.

Then I put her on the train and had a few hours to come up for air, and that evening my sis Margaret and her family from Pennsylvania drove in. They have three children aged 4 to 11 so there was lots of food and drinks and action and laundry. Chad and Margaret hadn't been to Oregon for 15 years so this was very very special. Jenny and Austin are kindred spirits and did lots of cool big-kid stuff together--tagging bags at the warehouse, swimming in the creek, and taking Hansie on a walk.

I just can't tell you how cool it is to have sisters and to spend time with them and to talk in Pennsylvania Dutch about many things and to think of the same memory at the exact same time and to feel understood and affirmed in a deep-down way like only a sister can understand and affirm.

Meanwhile all of our six kids were home, since both Matt and Emily are home for part of July and most of August, so we've had a full house.

Despite the joy of all these lovely people in the house, I had a very bad night last night.

First of all, I decided to turn on the air conditioning for the first time. But first I thought I'd clean out the air filter on the furnace/heat pump. This should be done once a month but I hadn't run either the heat or the a/c for a long time so I didn't worry about the filter.

Well. I discovered that the fan has been running all this time even though the heat/cold weren't on. And when I went to remove the complicated filter business I could hardly get it out and I had some very horrible moments there thinking I had ruined a very expensive piece of equipment. Thankfully Paul sort of fixed things up but I am still upset at myself for not staying on top of this and not noticing--duh!--that the fan was running.

Matt has been working at a hydroelectric plant up in the mountains where he doesn't have cell phone service. He's worked late a few times so last night I didn't worry until 11 pm. Wait. He's never been this late. I tried calling and it went straight to voice mail. What in the world? The next few hours were torture as I tried to sleep and listened to every car that came down the road but didn't turn in.

At best, he'd had a flat tire on that narrow mountain road and was sleeping there until he could get help in the morning. At worst, he had rolled the car down the mountainside and was trapped in his car and bleeding to death.

Then at midnight a small moth crawled in my ear and couldn't get out. Unbelievable, how awful it is to have a bug in your ear desperately flapping--FFDDDDDDDTTTTTT--and you can't do a thing about it. I shone a light in to lure it out. It just flapped. I went looking and found Emily still up. She could see the moth but couldn't reach it with tweezers and she poked my ear canal and it bled. Finally she took a syringe of warm water and blasted it into my ear and drowned the moth, but she still couldn't get it out.

I went back to bed and worried. If Matt were hanging out with friends, his phone would at least ring.

1:00. No answer on Matt's phone. 2:00. Must our families lose another young son/brother/nephew? Would Brownsville Church be big enough for the funeral? My life will never be the same. I will have to walk this path of grief that so many have walked before me.

At 3:00 a car pulled in and a door shut. Footsteps. Could it be? I got up and found Matt just outside his bedroom looking tired and dirty and very alive. "I just got home from work," he said. "We had to get those pipes removed and off to Washington today. We didn't have a choice. And we got it done. They're on a trailer behind Gary's SUV and I followed him to the Brownsville exit."

Today the bug is still in my ear and the filter is still a bit iffy, but I've decided that any day with all my children safe at home is a very good day indeed.

Quote of the Day:
"I'm just fascinated with thunderstorms. It's like your fascination with anacondas. I'm scared of it but I'm fascinated by it."
--Jenny, during a wonderful thunderstorm at Grandpa and Grandma's in Minnesota