Morning all:

The morning paper is not yet here, so I am sitting with coffee in hand looking a little dumb. The normal routine is to sip-n-read as I do my quick news scan. Actually the fact that the paper is not here is probably not a bad thing since it appears that all of the newspaper staff took a mass week-long vacation. I know this to be a fact since the headline has not changed all week. Another plane crash, this one in Peru; hardly worth a mention. Another hurricane, where else but in Florida; get the details on television stock video. But our paper’s headline stays stuck on “Huggs fired from UC”. Our town is in shock as the all-time most successful University of Cincinnati basketball coach for the past 16 years got dumped in a power struggle with the new University president.

One moment please, the cat is ringing the doorbell to announce that he wants in, and since I am up I might as well get a refill.

OK, back. Last Sunday we took the Deux Chevaux on a tour—remember last week’s mention of the organic farm? The farm bit proved to be a big zero. Even a stop at a road-side tent sale was worthless. Heading home Marcia spotted a classic/vintage car show benefiting our local orphanage. “pull in Dirk”, “pull in”. After a huge number of married years husbands instinctively know how and when to obey, so up the orphanage drive we rolled. Ten dollars and a classic/vintage car judge escorted us dead center among a circles of spotless vehicles: but, I thought we were just here to look? Most of the displayed cars had their owners scurrying about buffing and polishing. The air was thick with the smell of trees, fresh cut grass, and Armor-All. Now remember that we were just returning from visiting a farm and did not even have a towel in the trunk.

The most important item any classic/vintage car displayer worth his salt carries is a complete setting of bag chairs. We did not know this and were therefore relegated to sit at a picnic table. Marcia did discover that the judging would occur at four o’clock – three and a half hours of sliding around a picnic bench trying to avoid a sun that had pumped up the temperature to a sweltering 93 degrees.

But all was not for naught. There were approximately forty cars in the show and I believe I counted approximately thirty-nine trophies on the judge’s table. I was very happy with the gallon of window-washing fluid I received as a prize.

Marcia’s glee at seeing my prize falls under a category for which the German’s have a word: “schadenfreude”.

This time of year the Pastoor’s have five birthdays in less than two weeks. So a great big happy birthday to Adrianne, Sandy, Pete, Jr., George, and Oom Joop who turns 90, and reflection on the amazing life of our Omi who would have turned 94 in this same period. We did manage to connect with Adrianne on her birthday, calling her during afternoon tea break at a training class she was leading—“tea break” sounds so quaint but shows the British influence in Tonga. She is in great spirits and wrote us a short note afterwards that as she was leaving her office she was informed that the arriving boat had a package for her. “Impossible” she thought since with the national Tongan strike there had been no mail service for five weeks. Sure enough, there, on her birthday, sat a package containing all our birthday gifts to her. OK, a little shiver up the back is appropriate here.

Make it a great week.
Cheers,
Dirk