In Which We Celebrate the Anniversary of Pearl Harbor, or something like that

December 7^th-9^th: Monday-Wednesday

Almost the entire western end of the big house is getting repainted. The big room, Jim’s old room, and the hallway and pantry. Lynn and I have been given, no privileged with the job of doing all this painting. Monday we trimmed Jim’s old room which will now be a guest house and gave it a first coat. The color we are using is a Sage Green and has the amazing ability to look either gray or brown under almost any lighting condition.

Over the next two days we steadily worked our way around the big room and it’s a joining section. By the end of Wednesday we had put at least one coat on everything. The end was in sight. I really like Lynn. He is a cool old guy. He cracks me up.

So Monday was Pearl Harbor Day. Also it was the day of my birth, 19 years ago. That night for dinner the Tricarico’s invited me over for Indian food, Tika Masala Paneer and Nan. It was incredible. Thank you Laurie and Maria. Then around 7 everyone else on the mission came over for cake. Thanks Kris. James and Maria made me a really cool card full of excellent illustrations of adventures I/We have had. Emily sent a cool birthday card with a recipe for Man-erole (Man Casserole). It included ingredients such as 6 beers, 2 bags of pretzels, 64 slices of American cheese, I cup of hot sauce, 3 ib. of beef jerky, 3 bottles of BBQ sauce,10 large potatoes, 7 glazed donuts, and a can of motor oil. Instructions called for a wheel barrow, a weed whacker and a spray gun. The Eldeens gave me two brand new razors and Jenny gave me a very strange cup with several cartoon kids with ------------- on it and the words Happiness Trip and Sweet Family on it along with this message inside a heart: I want JJU: everywhere ♦and if JJU:’s ∆ beside me I know • I need never care. Now I have no idea who or what JJU is or why there are all those symbols in the message but I feel like it is from the heart.

So after work Wednesday I hitched up my trousers, rolled up my sleeves and commenced to give the house a thorough cleaning. I swept out the fossilized remains of crumbs and dirt from the floors. I mountain of dirty dishes by the sink, I scrubbed the counters, I pulverized the dust bunnies, I man-handled the dried on spills on the stove. I Was Lancelot of the Kitchen. The sponge, Excalibur. Victory was mine. Actually the sad part was the general cleanliness of the house was a couple notches below where Jim left it but it was so much better than where it had been several hours previously that it seemed much cleaner.

Wednesday we had a community meal to welcome back Jim and welcome Ben Smith. I was recruited to make dessert and Laurie asked me to make those Peanut Butter Chocolate cookies I made a couple weeks ago so I got of work around four and went home to start baking. My computer is going to the dogs. The battery cannot last for longer than about 40 minutes now so I just took out the battery and keep it plugged in when I use it because I think that uses less power than charging the battery every 40 minutes. It really ruins the mobility of the laptop though.

The Wrights and company arrived back shortly after six. It was good to see Jimbo again. I think he’s gotten taller. He brought back copious amounts of everything. It will take him days to unpack. That night we had pesto pasta stuff which was delicious. Maria found a bunch of old videos that James had taken of himself and then somehow failed to delete so we watched them after dinner.

That night Jim and I stayed up late and talked. It is really good to have him back. That night we prayed before we went to bed. I forgot how much I like doing that. Also Jim bought me the set of Bourne movies for my b-day. Cool beans.