New Family Member!

Congratulations to cousin Adam and his beautiful wife Yvonne - this evening they welcomed their first (of many, I hope!) baby, the lovely Miss Avery Lynn into the world! How cool! How exciting! How wonderful!!!! Very best wishes to the new family!!

I went to a spouses' coffee this morning. The fellowship was great and the program was outstanding! We learned about Mate Tea. It's a very Argentinean thing and I thought I already knew a fair bit about it but was I wrong!! I was. In Europe, it's considered "Jesuit Tea" because the Jesuit Missionaries all came back from Argentina drinking it. There's a whole process - physical and traditional - in creating, serving and drinking the tea. Here's some of what I learned today...

1. There is traditionally at least two kinds of Mate cups - one for bitter and one for sweet tea.
2. The servador/servadora is the name of the "Keeper of the Mate" who serves (go figure!) everyone else.
3. You never boil the water for Mate.
4. You add cool water first - this is then sucked up and spit out (they skipped actually doing the spitting today!)
5. There's a whole lot of Mate tea in those cups! They're filled 3/4 full each time!
6. NEVER move the Mate spoon (the Bombilla) - this is highly insulting to the servador/servadora!!
7. Say "Gracias" when you don't want anymore (this shouldn't be done until you've drank at least once though!)

There - now you know what I didn't know. Unfortunately, you may not know what I DID know so...oh well! :-)

My early, early morning started with a flood in the laundry room. Sigh. Thankfully John wasn't at school yet and was able to call the washing machine guy. It was fixed all up this afternoon. Yeah!

Lilian came to work but I encouraged her to chill (like I could actually say "chill" in Spanish but that was basically what I told her!) I ended up driving her to the train station in the middle of the afternoon - sending her home. She seemed to be relatively fine, just looked tired but this bug is nasty and I don't want her getting worse.

This evening I went to the dermatologist and had some spots fried on my face...ouch. Nothing cancerous but John was adamant that I have someone check them out. He's a worry wart!

As I came into the house after picking up the girls, Jake informed me that my sister had called and left a message that I should call my mom. Never a good sign. Just as I picked up the phone, it rang. Kim was in a car accident...on TUESDAY!!!!!!!! Obviously, she's not mortally wounded or this would be much higher on my "report" for the day. Her right foot is badly broken - they initially warned her that she might lose it but it's looking much, much better and appears that amputation is no longer a threat. She will need surgery, most likely next week. She was most happy that they finally let her eat this evening...they'd been holding off in case she needed to go into surgery sooner. Plus the pain is now under control. Assuming (please God) that Kim's going to be just fine (and soon!), I'm now going to make this about me. Why, why, why didn't I get a call until 48+ hours after the fact?????? I'm 43 years old. I'm a big girl. I handle emergencies exceptionally well. Where's the good reason to wait??? Can you tell this totally pisses me off??? What really pisses me off is that I've repeatedly told my family (and John's BTW) - do NOT wait...I don't care if you "don't want me to worry"...I don't care if you think "there's nothing she can do anyway" - CALL ME!!! Can I make it clearer? Honestly, I feel like this is a way to punish us for being so far away. It truly feels that way. Yeah, I'm pissed.

Okay, now I'll go watch something mindless on TV and try to decompress. Stay safe, I love you and call me if someone I love is hurt...grrrrr. :-)