Daffodils in Spring

Today was a brilliant, sunny winter day in Seattle, and during a walk I saw primroses blooming. It made me think of this quote, which I love.

"Then, amazingly, only a few days later, the very first bulbs began to bloom. Within a week, there were dozens of daffoldils in the yard. When this finally happens in late winter every year, I'm astonished. I've always given up. In November and December when I plant them, I get swept up in the fantasy that the earth, after so much rain, will be rich and loamy. Planting bulbs sounds like a romantic and fun thing to do, but it never is. The earth is rocky and full of roots; it's clay, and it seems doomed and polluted, yet you dig little holes for the ugly, shriveled bulbs, throw in a handful of poppy seeds, and cover everything over, and you know you'll never see them again-it's death and clay and shrivel. Your hands are nicked from the rocks, your nails are black with soil. December and January have been so grim the last few years, and this year the power kept going out, and everyone was crazy as a rat. Yet here we are in February, with war drums and daffodils everywhere, and poppies waiting in the wings"

-Anne Lamott in Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Wedding Weekend

This weekend is a huge weekend for the Crumly family, it's Allison's wedding weekend! The family has all trickled in from our various corners of the world, we are happily running around with our to-do list, and are just generally thrilled to be helping Allison and Jim start their married life together. I'm sure I'll have photos later on, but for now I will leave you with this one. Last night we went to a bridal shower thrown by some of Mom's good friends, and attended by many of the women who were my parents' friends as we grew up. In some ways these women they are like second and third mothers to me and I respect them so much. It was a lovely shower on a beautiful evening with these great people, and was a great way to start out the festive weekend!

Tri Fun

I've wanted to do a triathlon since last year, and this summer I decided I should just do it. Several of my friends decided to do the same one, and we had so much fun! It was an all-women's sprint tri, and I really enjoyed the camaraderie and energy everyone seemed to have.

Happy that I finished!

Transition area

Number 4714!

Jess and myself

The madness of the morning, transition area!

Pictures

It's technically 3:15am on August 1st, but I forgot to enter my July post, so here it is. For the sake of completing my New Year's Resolution of blogging at least once a month, we're going to pretend like it's still July. :)

And instead of a long blog post this month, I'm going to show you some recent photos of my life and times.

Tuesday Night Soccer Team

Vespa

Will and Rebecca on my recent trip to Boise

Precious little puppy

I lost this game of croquette

More Croquette in the backyard

Erin and Joel

Allison and Erin

Rice Cakes and Party Crashing Part I

We net Nancy at our open class day, when we were practicing conversational English and news went around the hospital that it was open to visitors. Nancy is a cardiologist, specializing in interventional radiology. At 25 she is young and energetic and radiates a joy about her that is recognizable instantly. She connected with Jess during the conversational English class, and suggested we go listen to live music and have coffee sometime the next week. The opportunity to develop relationships on trips like this is such a special privilege, I am grateful for the way people reach out to us and befriend us.

The day we were to meet we got a text from her, letting us know the live music wasn’t happening that night, but would we like to get “special cakes” with her? The term “special cakes” is used to describe a local food of Hue, gelatinous rice with shrimp stuck inside, the whole ensemble wrapped in banana leaves. The rice reminds me of the agar I used to grow bacteria on in biology class. The shrimp are crunchy with their shells still on, and have a strong flavor of fish and unknown spices. I ate these cakes several times when I was here last, and they are legendary in my mind of least favorite things ever tasted. We texted Nancy right back and said we would love to go.

The evening we were supposed to meet her we got another text: “there is a party at the Century Hotel at 6:30 for U.S. orthopedic doctors. Want to go?” I was thrilled at the prospect of getting out of eating special cakes, and we decided to roll with whatever the plans were. “Sure, want to meet there at 6:30?” I wrote back. “We should have time for special cakes first, meet you at 6?” Haha, all hopes of getting out of eating special cakes drifted away.

We met her in the small alley where the restaurant was located, she driving her scooter, us walking the short distance from the hotel. She was cheerful and friendly, as she seems to always be, and we had delightful time talking and laughing and connecting despite cultural barriers and occasional language blocks (although her English is very good). The cakes looked just like I remembered them, a whole pile of banana leaves, each one holding it’s little gem of rice and shrimp. This time though they didn’t taste nearly as bad as I remember them tasting, and I only had to eat about half a dozen. I really enjoyed getting to know Nancy, talking to her about her family, about life in Vietnam, about practicing medicine at her hospital. We sat at a little table, the only people in the small restaurant connected to the owner’s house. Geckos scurried along the walls and the evening heat was broken up by the fans that had been turned on for our sake.

The famous "rice cakes"

Nancy

Rice Cakes and Party Crashing Part II

When we were finished we walked across the street to the orthopedic party. Despite our hesitation to arrive uninvited to a party, Nancy assured us it was perfectly fine. “Miss Huong from the hospital is going to be there, and she said we could join her”. I’ve always wanted to crash a party, so here was my chance.

The hotel was impressive in it’s formal décor and kind staff waiting on the guests. We entered the large dining hall and instantly felt out of place. For one, we were underdressed in our capris and t-shirts, most of the other people in nice blouses and skirts or dress shirts and pants. Second, we didn’t know anyone, as Miss Huong was late.

We sat down as unobtrusively as we could in the corner. Just a few minutes later we were approached by a man who asked us “do you speak English?”. As we introduced ourselves we realized this was the American orthopedic doctor, one of the guest of honor of this party. The man who’s party we were crashing. He then asked us the dreaded question, “so who do you know here?” There really wasn’t any way to avoid the matter, so we half-laughingly, half-sheepishly admitted that we didn’t really know anyone here, and weren’t quite sure what we were doing. He laughed and was incredibly gracious in his interest in us, in what we were doing in Hue, and in our experience in Vietnam. He seemed to understand how you find yourself in unexpected places when traveling. He explained the other doctors were from all over the world. So we were crashing an international orthopedic doctors’ party. Sweet.

Soon the hotel staff walked over to us and told us to come sit at one of the central tables in the middle of the room. Pretty much any dream of being unobtrusive was now completely shot. Not long after we sat down I felt something wet fall on me. As I looked up I noticed the vent on the ceiling was slowly dripping. Beth and I spent the entire dinner laughing at the huge drips of water that would spontaneously fall on us, there being absolutely nothing we could do other than laugh and be as discreet about it as possible. It just added to the extreme bizarreness and hilarity of the whole evening.

Soon the dinner started, and we began what would be an EIGHT course dinner. We were served course after course of fancy Vietnamese dishes, each one unexpected, flavorful, and different. Most were quite good, some, like the squid, a bit unusual. We finished the dinner with a course of Mangosteens, one of my new favorite fruits. We dug out the soft, sweet, white sections of the middle of the fruit with spoons, enjoying the refreshing taste of the now familiar fruit. The American doctor leaned back in his chair to ask me, “what is this?”. I explained how to eat it, and assured him it was delicious. “Did you try everything we were served?” he asked me. “Yup” I happily reported. “Did you know what everything was?” he next asked me. “Nope” I said and laughed. What an evening.

Nancy, Jess, Beth, Me, Ms. Huong

Clean Water

Clean water. I know it’s a huge issue. I carried water on my head at an awareness event several months ago, I’ve heard about it at church as we raise money for Spilling Hope, I’ve seen the wells in Africa and the need for access to safe water. And I’ve been in Vietnam where the need is apparent and hard to miss. And then on my last day in Vietnam, right before leaving for the airport in fact, I get sick. Food poisoning or dirty water poisoning, it really doesn’t matter. I felt horrible, and was having trouble imagining making it through two plane flights and a layover. I felt nauseated and my whole body felt weak from dehydration. And I was acutely sick for just a few hours, until the medications kicked in and I drank enough fluids to counteract the dehydration. And as I lay on the plane I thought, this is what people experience practically everyday from drinking dirty water. People walk hours to gather water that is going to make them sick like this because they have no other choice. People go about their normal lives feeling like this because they are sick so often.

And I was reminded for the umpteenth time the importance of safe water. I was at once terribly grateful for access to safe water, and humbled that I have it when others don’t. The fight to give people access to safe water must continue. We must work to get safe water to people, through wells, or safe water systems, however it can be successful. We must do it. And I must remember to be grateful and to give out of that gratitude.

Safe water matters. It’s life and death.