Dibs n Dabs on a Sunday Evening

One of the things I miss about having young children in the family is their observations about life and people that are so honest, so dead-on, and so unexpected.

Well, except for that time we were at Philip and Anna's wedding and little Matthew told a woman that she couldn't possibly be a grandma because she's too fat. I could have done without that one. I guess she was quite a ways plumper than both his grandmas.

Thankfully I still have Jenny who is young and at home and very observant. Today she said, "There's this guy that comes to my lemonade stand with 'Travis' and I don't know who he is, but he has a Mennonite accent."
Emily and me: A WHAT?
Jenny: You know, like, a Harrisburg Mennonite accent.
Emily and me: No we don't know. What do you mean?
Jenny: Well, like, he said he wants lemonade and I said, "Do you want pink or regular?" and he said, "I'll take regga-ler." That's how he said it. I said reg-u-lar and he said regga-ler.

I was laughing too hard to try to figure out who this person was.

But Jenny was spot-on with her observation and you know it.
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The other day my former student Sharilyn came by for tea. She brought her adorable little 3-year-old son with her. We talked about writing, adoption, our children, other people, and writing some more.

A former student who is now my sister-in-law once accused me of having Sharilyn as the "teacher's pet." Looking back, she was probably justified in this. I was very young and she was mature enough for her age that we were in some ways equals.

It's nice to relate to both these ladies now as equals without worrying about who is a pet and who isn't.
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Today we went to a gospel-music concert in the Brownsville Park. Music is nice but watching people is even nicer. It was a wonderful down-home mix of various Mennonite brands mixed with older ladies in generic white perms and homeschooled young people trying to be cool and gentlemen in baseball caps and little kids running around the bike paths.

One of the singing groups was the Todd Neuschwander family. Todd told the story of how he came to travel and play piano with the Gospel Echoes team at the improbable age of 15. Which took me back to when I was in the youth group and all of us who were trying to experience life beyond Grove City drove four hours north to hear the Gospel Echoes team and there was this young man named Todd playing piano.

When I saw and heard Todd playing piano and singing in that little church in Bemidji, Minnesota, I never dreamt I would someday be married to his second cousin.
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Todd is in Oregon because his dad just got married. For some reason people my age tend to look at young love with seriousness and sentimental admiration, and at old love with amusement. Why is that?

Maybe because we've been young but not old.

Today at the concert there was an older couple in front of us. Someone recently informed me that these two are emphatically not dating, they are just keeping each other company.

But then today I saw them leaning in to tell each other something during the concert and I thought, Hmmm, surely it isn't necessary to lean their shoulders THAT close to say something if they're just "keeping each other company." And then I remembered their ages and thought Oh wait, it probably is necessary after all, so they can hear each other.

See, we find old love merely amusing.
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Today Paul preached to a grand total of 5 people.

We went down to Winston, two hours south, to help out the little Mennonite church there and for some reason almost everyone had plans other than going to church there.

But Jesus promised to be there even if only two or three are gathered, and He was.
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Quote of the Day:
Family member: Didn't "Bertha's" mom die recently?
Me: Yes, and her dad is "seeing somebody" already.
Emily the hysterical: SEEING somebody??!! Like, a GHOST??!!