2008-12-29

After Morning Offering Mick went out for errands while I came up to finish my journals, have chapel time and start work on a UPI article on a new difference-maker, Chris Jordan. He is an artist, a photographer who shared my experience of seeing inadvertent beauty in things like a garbage dump shining in the sun. He began taking time to create images of this wabi-sabi beauty and then headed towards activism by creating photographic images of plastic bags or contrails en masse.

Mick and I had lunch together and then I worked further to gather my information for the article while Mick continued with detailing his truck. We broke for a bath at 4:00 p.m. and the Rueckerts – Tommy, Mary, Rosie, Ted and EJ – arrived just as we were dressed again, perfect timing. I popped Melissa’s Artichoke and Spinach Dip in the oven to warm, sliced the French bread and our guests got settled and then joined us in the living room for a nosh and our first chance to talk together in two years as a family.

At 6:00, most of the Rueckerts went out for a run, came back and showered, and we went to the L & N Bistro, which is a restaurant owned and run by Tommy’s long-time friend, Nancy – the N in ‘L & N”. Her brother, Will, also one of Tommy’s oldest friends as they went to school from grade one onwards through high school, joined us with his wife and their two children, a four-year-old and a babe in arms. We had delicious food and a long, rich conversation. Lots of laughter and reminiscences later, we came home replete.

On the way we drove through Lake Forest, a ritzy subdivision nearby which runs its own Christmas home exterior decorating contest, so the houses are fun to look at, with their many colors of lights and fanciful lawn and roof decorations.

When we came back, Tommy got out a game called Sniglets and we had fun with that until about 11:30. Finally the party broke up, and Mick and I came upstairs for a late date, an amazingly powerful energy exchange that left us in awe in the afterglow. And for once, I got to go to sleep immediately thereafter! I barely recall saying our final prayers together. Ah!