Glad to Have You Back

Last week I realized that my Chatterbox mug was missing. Not just any mug. The mug that I carry like it's precious Waterford Crystal. That I only carry with two hands, not one, because I know myself so well.  My mentor, Art Wozniak, gave it to me many years back, after a trip up north to his stomping grounds in Wisconsin.  You see, I grew up in the south, so pronouncing the name of any Wisconsin city other than Milwuakee was always a challenge. Like the time I called Waukesha (WAW-kə-shaw) Wa-kee-sha as if it were a hip-hop artist. Art never let me live it down. I can see him chuckling and shaking his head at my mispronunciations now. It makes me smile. And miss him. He had a unique take on so much of life. I would give just about anything to hear his take on Donald Trump right now.  My guess is that he would like the idea of The Donald being President.  But Art was so smart that it didn't seem possible that he could truly like the idea, and perhaps he was just saying those things to give his "bleeding heart liberal" children and microbiology director a headache.  You could almost always get him to say what he really thought... eventually. And even if you disagreed, it was impossible not to love him.

So my mug. It was hiding in a very obvious place. I didn't find it, a coworker did. I promised her a sushi lunch, with sake (because she also voted for Hillary).  It has a quote at the bottom that I haven't paid any attention to in forever: "Good coffee and old stories are two of life's glories." Ain't that the truth? Art told great stories, but he drank terrible coffee. I drink great coffee, but have kind of stopped telling our story. Sure, there are story snippets on Facebook, but that really doesn't do life justice.  There are stories to tell and I'm feeling convicted to share lately.  After all, the kids can fend for themselves nowadays, and surely I can find a few minutes every week to put an iPad in front of their face and tell a story or two.... so we'll see how this goes.  If you didn't know it, Don has a parallel blog to this one (http://lightpack.blogspot.com/) where you can read his latest post on our most recent family adventure. Here's hoping for more big (and small) adventures and their stories in 2017!! And who knows, maybe a blog name change....