Sunday, January 18, 2009

Countdown

Coincidence?
On Friday, as I arrived for my last day of work at the hospital before my trip, I spotted a young Indian couple who were lost. I asked them if I could help them find anything, and to my surprise they said they were looking for the "Birth and Family Education" department. (We seldom have any patients come to our office. Most of them register for our classes by phone or mail, and the classes themselves are held elsewhere in the building). I told them that's where I was headed, and after badging in, I escorted them to our office. (Cue "Twilight Zone" theme music).

Experiencing strong "felines" of separation anxiety
Today I'll be taking my cat Bailey over to live with his "stepmom" Kate while I'm gone. Kate knows Bailey well and is an attentive catsitter. He'll enjoy her new condo. (Hopefully, he won't enjoy clawing her carpet.) Since tomorrow's a holiday and Kate will be home, we thought it would be best if he had some time in his new digs tomorrow while we are both available to supervise. It's going to be hard to let go of him. I'm not looking forward to spending the last two days without him before I leave. Silly? Not if being single and missing someone you talk to and snuggle with every night is silly. I hope he enjoys his new "Deluxe Extra-Large Enclosed Cat Box with Detachable Swinging Door, Replaceable Filter, Snapping Locks for Security, and Anti-Slip Feet."


Send-offs
At church, I introduced the Church School children to their substitute teacher Sean. After church, my family had a bon voyage dinner of sorts.

From "The Summons" ~
Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean, and do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean in you and you in me?
~ John L. Bell

2 comments:

Allison said...

You will probably be on your way by the time you read this, but I just wanted to let you know I'm thinking about you and vicariously reliving my time in India through you!

Know that there is at least one other person in the world -- and I'm guessing, a lot more -- who understand the reluctance to be apart from your significant-other animal one second more than necessary. You should have seen me ... er, no, I'm glad you didn't ... see me when I said good-bye to my kitty King Carnivore upon my departure to Jerusalem.

And as for your "book end" town, you'll find that locals leave out one syllable entirely, referring to it as "TiruNAHmali." As many syllables as there are in Tamil words, you can understand why they'd leave a few out! Please give my best to J.P., Penita, Johnny and Doubly. And Doug and Jane, too, as well as the dialogue groups, who I hope you get to meet.

I'll look forward to future posts!

Shanti,
Allison

Mark Spitzack said...

Romba nandri, Allison! I'm sitting upstairs at Quo Vadis. Last night J.P. gave an inspiring talk which was a great comfort to me. I'll tell you more about that sometime. I send you greetings from him and from Leca (do you know her?), and will track down the others when I'm back here in Feb.