Back in the Groove

Most of our leaves are on the ground now. I feel like we missed the peak of the fall colors while we were away, although this hasn’t been the most spectacular year. I know winter is still a month away, but when we chop leaves and I see the farmers cutting soybeans I feel like fall is over.

BASKETBALL
Basketball season is about to get under way. Ben made the team at school so we’ve got to get him to practice or a game six days a week. Sometimes practice starts at 6:30 am. Other times he doesn’t get out of practice until 6:00 pm. Fortunately he can catch a ride with someone who lives close by some of the time. Stay tuned for updates as the season wears on.

GETTING READY FOR HAITI
Jenna has signed up for her third trip to Haiti. She’s going in February. She’s already been putting a lot of the money she has earned from various jobs toward this trip and is planning to bake and sell pies and such during the holidays to raise the rest of the money she needs. If you need an order form just let me know.

TRUNK OR TREAT
We had trunk or treat at church again this year. I showed up for a hot dog. Everyone else stayed for the whole thing. I must say that it was quite a different experience this year. It sure was nice not to have to get there early to get ready for the event.

Vicki said it was a good night, but the whole thing was cut short by about fifteen minutes. Law enforcement officials were in pursuit of three fugitives who got off the interstate in White House. They asked us to send everyone home to avoid unnecessary risk in case the manhunt came our way. Two of the fugitives were apprehended before morning and the third lost his life in a shoot out when cornered by law enforcement officials in Kentucky the next day.

ENJOYING THE PERFORMING ARTS
Since getting back from vacation we have enjoyed performance on both stage and screen. Vicki and I have been to the movies twice and the kids once. The first film we saw was The Martian, which we enjoyed. Given that there is always some artistic license I thought they stayed pretty true to the science and current technology, however, as good as the film is I felt they could have humanized the main character, Mark Watney, a bit more. The kids watched Pan while we were watching our movie. I don’t think they enjoyed it as much as they expected. Last weekend Vicki and I caught a matinee showing of the latest 007 flick, Spectre. We enjoyed this as well.

Nate is the only one of us to see all three of the live theatre performances I’ll mention here. I served as a chaperone for a 7th grade field trip to see I own the sky at TPAC. This is a one act play with no dialogue performed by a French Canadian troupe from Quebec. The play was about an immigrant forced to flee from her homeland due to war. Her only possessions were what she could put in a small suitcase. The play was about how she was accepted (or not) in the strange new city where she found herself. I didn’t know the back story before I saw the play so it didn’t make one shred of sense to me. I enjoyed it because the performance was good, but I was scratching my head over the story the whole time.

We all went to Adams the night before Halloween to see Spirit, which is the story of the Bell Witch. Vicki and I had seen this with friends back in 2003 and had wanted to take the kids back to see it at some point since Old Kate is a Robertson County legend. We enjoyed it, but Vicki and I both felt this director’s interpretation drifted a bit too far from the original story.

Finally, Vicki and Nate went to see DA’s performance of Still Life with Iris. This is the fantastical adventure of a little girl’s search for home. Vicki and Nate both came home talking about how good the play was. Vicki even said she wants to make sure she sees everything DA puts on from here on.

FACING REALITY
I’ve been offered a bus route at work. This means I will get to drive a bus to school rather than my personal vehicle, making stops in Cross Plains, White House, and Goodlettsville to pick up students. This means I have to get a commercial drivers license so I can drive the bus. I took the written test the other day so I now have my learner’s permit. That’s a story in and of itself because they gave the wrong test first which completely rattled my confidence. They mistakenly gave me the test for the combination trailer endorsement first which I had no need to study for. That got me so stirred up that by the time I got to the general knowledge test I couldn’t think clearly, but I did pass!

The funny thing was that in filling out the application I decided should get help on one particular question. So I said to the guy at the counter, “I really want to mark ‘red’ for my hair color, but something tells me ‘gray’ is more accurate.” He politely said, “You should go with gray.” I’ll just read Proverbs 16:31 and move on.

Joe