Mark's Notebook

Weekend

Saturday, April 22

Today we had the distribution center open 11-3. Spent a couple hours before that stocking the shelves. Mary did registration, and I hung out there to keep an eye on her when it was real busy at the very beginning. We had two wonderful volunteers, Tammy and her teenage son Billy, Tammy's energetic 4-year old Anna kept us on our toes all day long.

Shirley came over to visit us today. It was really nice seeing her again. She is promising to cook us a special dinner this week.

We saw a few familiar faces from when we were here late last year. They remembered us too. Even those who didn't know us yet were very friendly to us.

Mary and I put up a screen canopy over the picnic table today, so we can serve up dinner outside the tent but keep the flies away.

Tonight we got our trailer hooked up to some real power so we can recharge the computer and the phones. Until now, we've had only battery power for the lights, but not AC for the outlets.

In the early evening we tried to go out to Sonic for ice cream, but they had run out of ice cream. We tried BK but they had just closed. We ran to a nearby town to DQ but they had also just closed. We ended up at a gas station mom-n-pop where we bought pints of Ben & Jerry's on sale ... one for each of us, no sharing, except Mary got an ice cream sandwich. Most of mine is still in the freezer, but it was a fun adventure after a very warm day.

Sunday, April 23

Today Mary and I went to church at The Vineyard in Slidell with Ralph and Pete. They had loud worship and a good message, but I have not been sleeping well in the heat, so I almost fell asleep. Still, it felt good to be in church, praise the Lord, shake some hands, and take a drive in the fresh air.

In the afternoon we just read a little bit and I took a nap. For dinner eight of us went to Picayune (a real town pronounced pick-a-yoon) and ate at Ryan's ... all you can eat. One of the guys ate six steaks! Mary and I have been able to eat gluten and all the things we can't have at home ... we had biscuits, boston cream pie, etc. Mary even had salad dressing and other stuff with vinegar, and she has not had any reaction. Even last time we were here she would not press it that far. They say Ryan's was the first restaurant open anywhere along the gulf coast after the storm, and in October when they opened, the wait could be over an hour just to get in the door. The service was great, too.

We got an email from Matt today, and he gave us a mailing address. We'll be sending that information out to all the family soon.

Funny story today ... when we went to church, I could not find my wallet. I was really worried because we are thousands of miles from home and my wallet has credit cards, health insurance, etc. We went to church and hoped we'd find it when we got back to camp. While Ralph and Pete stopped for coffee, Mary and I prayed for help finding my wallet. But I was still worried. Engineers are trained to consider the worst case, and I'm real good at that by nature anyway. So we went into church, and Mary opened her backpack to get her pen, and she handed me my wallet. How it got in there is beyond both of us. Neither of us remembers putting it in there, and it's not really something we are in the habit of doing. We figured God just picked it up from wherever I dropped it, and He put it in the backpack so we'd find it. I feel so foolish worrying after something like this happens.

General

We are getting eaten alive by bugs! It has been real bad for me since we got here, but for Mary it really just started today. Actually, she woke up earlier this morning and she was shaking the whole trailer with her scratching. (I had been through the same thing around 4 am.) I'm scratching right now as I sit at the computer.

We have been able to eat just about anything we want. I still don't know why I got sick a couple of days ago. But it seems likeliest that it was some kind of dehydration. I had been drinking this gatorade-like stuff all day, but perhaps it was too sugary. Mary also thinks I may have used too much bug spray and it got into my system through open bites.

Mary and I are getting in the habit of praying about everything. We pray every night before we go to bed. We also pray whenever a situation arises, like when I lost my wallet earlier today. We also have devotions every morning, so we get to pray a lot.

What else ... it has been warm here. Even when it rained it just cooled off a little. The humidity magnifies the heat. It's probably been in the low 80s. But the trailer is much warmer. We didn't have real electricity in here until last night, so we couldn't run the A/C. Even after connecting, we've been afraid to run it lest we trip a breaker, but we tried it for a few minutes today without a problem. We think we've been getting the bug bites at night while sleeping, so cooling it off in here may help.

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Last updated Tuesday 13 May 2008