Friday and Sunday

Sunday, Orion and I woke up early and headed out to help our friends Manisha and Towino move to Mt. Vernon, Missouri. We headed over to their apartments and loaded the truck up with their goodies. We left the 'Burg at 10:15 and after a swing by the McD's in Clinton and a potty break in Boliver we made it to Mt. V just after 1:00. We checked in, unpacked, and hit the grocery store before leaving at 4:00. Orion and I made great time on the way home and we returned around 6:20.
But before Sunday's adventures, we celebrated Friday!


Friday was fabulous!


Friday was awesome!

Friday was fun!

John made homemade lasagne and gnocchi. We also made the Fried Eggs that Manisha taught me to make earlier the same week. Stacy brought cucumber sandwiches. Orion made a huge chocolate cake. Allie brought a tasty cabbage and seafood stew. We ate (a lot), we chatted, we celebrated Manisha's belated birthday, we ate some more, and we danced.

And danced.

And danced.

Heidi

Yesterday, Saturday August 23, 2008, Heidi Bottomley Meyer was buried in Eureka Springs, AR next to her mom, Alice. And I was not there to say good-bye or to stand with my friends as they mourned.

Heidi and I attended the same high school. It was a small school. Everybody knew everybody else. But she was my little sister's very best friend. Heidi attended Hendrix College (where Tree and I went) for a time before transferring to the University of Arkansas to complete her teaching degree. Heidi taught in our hometown of Eureka Springs. She was beginning her eighth year teaching at Washington Junior High in Bentonville when she unexpectedly died. She had a passion for the written word and shared that passion with hundreds of kids each year. She was six weeks shy of her 37th birthday.

Heidi has two siblings, Bret and Brandon. Heidi married Donovan Meyer, her high school sweetheart and friend. Her daughter Avery is just about two years old.

It is tremendously sad when someone you know dies. But it becomes tragically incomprehensible when it is someone so good and so young.

For friends who knew Heidi and would like to help, Bret has created a website memorial for her. The family is asking that in lieu of flowers that monetary gifts be made to her memorial fund.

Farewell

Madeleine L'Engle died Thursday at 88. (Thanks to my sister Tree who shared the CNN report with me just after midnight.) L'Engle was well known for writing The Time Quartet. The first book in the quartet series, A Wrinkle in Time, was published in 1962. Some folks classify L'Engle as a children's book author, however I like to think of her as a theologian. She's written over sixty books! My favorites include: A Wrinkle in Time, A Ring of Endless Light, An Acceptable Time, and A Live Coal in the Sea. An Acceptable Time may be one of my all time favorites, written about Polly (short for Polyhymnia a Greek muse), the daughter of Meg from a Wrinkle in Time (So much a favorite I considered naming a daughter Polyhymnia!). In honor of L'Engle's life as a writer and her impact on me as a teacher/parent/wannabewriter - Orion and I will read aloud a Wrinkle this weekend. Perhaps it's a good time for us to begin the series. He might connect with Meg's little brother Charles!

You will be missed Madeleine L'Engle!