August 22 – “Best Voicemail Ever”

I started my day with a slice of homemade bread made by our esteemed neighbors, the Geran’s.  Not just any homemade bread.  Pistachio bread.  Not just any pistachio bread, either.  Green pistachio bread.  With a little butter (OK.  A lot of butter) and sugar and cinnamon on top … Good stuff.  Oh, and then we walked.  Necessary move.

When we got back I received the best voicemail ever.  I didn’t recognize the number, so I followed proper procedure and let it go to voicemail.  When I called it up, what I heard was 21 seconds of the most passionate verbage I have heard in a long time … speaking to me (Can you believe my good luck?) … in Chinese … or maybe Japanese … or it could have been Korean.  I have no idea what she was saying, but she truly believed in it.  It was enough to drive the “Transcribing Voicemail” function totally insane.  It attempted to transliterate numerous times, but finally gave up.  “Unable to transcribe this message.”  Yeah.  Me neither.

We got on the road around 10:30.  That put us at the Madisonville Buc-ees at lunch time.  With great fear and trepidation we decided to stop.  Last time we were there, we became trapped in an ocean of weekend travelers.  Note to others on journeys: Not nearly as crowded on Tuesdays at lunch.  Now, their chicken salad wrap was not as good as the ones at the Buc-ees on the way to Waco.  This one was a lettuce sandwich in many places.  Met our hunger need, however, and we were off.

Now our reason for heading north into Texas this time was to attend a preliminary meeting about our planned cruise and land tour trip to Alaska next summer.  Actually I was there to win a door prize.  See, there are three of us couples going together.  The Spray’s went to a different meeting on Sunday afternoon, and they won a door prize.  We couldn’t let them do that without an answer.  After the meeting they called out the first prize – an Alaska hat.  Nope.  Next they called out $25 off your tour cost.  Cary and KayLynn Winkle.  Success.  No bragging rights for the Spray’s now.  The hostess put all the cards down for a moment to tell a story, and must have forgotten where she was.  She pulled out another card from the deck and announced the winner of another $25 off the tour package.  Chris and Kelley Vaughan.  Well how about that?  We may or may not have called the Spray's on the way home to "share the news of our good fortune."  Three random couples choose to go on a trip together and all three of us win a door prize?  Guess this means things are boding well for our excursion …

Psalms 93:4 says, “Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea — the Lord on high is mighty.”

Father, thank you for the little bit of help toward our trip costs.  It’s not much, but we can use all the help we can get.  Amen.