Eh, Just Bag the Leaves

Matt's back from Rincon and Sam and I welcomed him with a rake. We missed him a lot though, and he's a bit bruised and bloody from scraping against coral several times. He called me every night from some cool bar that Esquire voted one of the best bars in the world, sipping his margarita and watching the sunset. I was sincerely happy for him. A few days of absence makes us live large on love soon after.

I had a fun-filled week of going out for dinner and drinks almost every night he was gone. I really do not miss the crowds at Sullivan's or Ruth's Chris. Yuck. So not my thing...

Sam and I delivered all of our food to Gleaners Food Bank from our food drive last week. Sam was thrilled about all of it, and I can tell that he's a giver at heart. He gave an old man one of his crackers today at Target, and the man said, "What a good boy - that's a good sign." Sam's the best.

I helped serve food to 200 homeless men on Sunday (while Matt was home cooking our London Broil) at the Wheeler Mission. Talk about putting it all into perspective. I went with my dad and brother, Nick. I would like to say that it was a fantastic experience, but it was a rather sad experience, overall. I'm going again this Sunday, though, and Matt's going soon, too. I felt very nervous and shy being there, but my dad and Nick are anything but nervous or shy, so Nick got me playing Jenga with a couple of the guys, and it turned out to be fun. I had to hold back my competitive nature when the poor old man got Jenga-ed...I was hoping to let him win. He was very smart, but I think he'd suffered a stroke at some point in life. He told us about once taking a jet with a friend from Florida to West Virginia, and how he once went scuba diving (scuba dove?) in Key West. It was nice connecting about life outside the mission - I told him that I went diving in Grenada and got very, very seasick. Nick is an incredibly mature young man - he made me so proud. : )

No joke: I've bagged over 50 large (paper) lawn bags, and the maples are still going... I'm in great shape, though, and an elderly neighbor lady yelled over to me today: You have great posture! That made me laugh.