Happy Aloha Friday, Happy Thanks Giving, and Happy Days!
I’m sending this out Wednesday because I won’t be in the office Thursday and will be in and out Friday. We were supposed to do the final walk-through at the house Friday, but the seller put if off (again) until Dec 1 – which is the day we were supposed to move in. Whatever. By 12/03 we’ll be in or we’ll be enjoying resort living at her expense. It’s all good.

Cherie says Willie is pulling up on everything and really working at getting more mobile. He’ll be 9 months this Saturday and weighs about 21 pounds and wearing 9-12 month outfits, so it sounds like he’s doing OK. Crucita is looking forward to a short break, and just aching to get into the house and start getting it ready for Christmas.

I’ll be thinking about my friends during this holiday season and all of the things we used to do together. And for close friends, like you, there will be special prayers of thanks. I hope you have a wonderful and memory-filled Thanksgiving, and that as the holiday season comes and goes, you and your loved ones will ponder on the True Love.

In Sister Act and Sister Act II, we saw Whoopi Goldberg and a gaggle of singing nuns take standard secular songs and turn them into hymns. That’s been happening in my head this morning, so I thought I’d share with you how it works. Remember the movie “Love Story?” And what about the theme song? “Where do I begin to tell the story of a love that could not be? A great love story that is older than the sea? Where do I start?” I kind of started hearing the melody first, then some of the lyrics drifted into my Swiss-cheese brain, and then it dawned on me that that’s the story of Jesus and me. It’s part of Thanksgiving, I guess, because I sure do feel thankful to have a message like that rolling around in my head. And today as I meditate on what that all means, I hope that lyric is the story of Jesus and you, too.
Make it a wonderful weekend
Chick

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Happy Aloha Friday, the last Friday in October. And Halloween, too. Y’all be careful out there. Physically and spiritually. Make sure the little ones are prepared and know how to travel safely.

Re: The house – Things are creeping along, but so far no signs of possible derailment. We still are waiting for a second appraisal on the condo. There are a couple of other units in the same price range going on the market, so if that’s the case, our buyer should be able to get his loan. I think I mentioned ours has already been approved (thanks to the excellent financial management skills of MRS. Todd).

Finally got a call from Cherie. She got laid off at Wal-Mart, so they trimmed all nonessential expenses. She hopes to get something else soon. She and Tommy and Willie have moved to a 1 bdr apartment in the same complex which is saving them about two-hundred bucks a month. Willie is sidling along the edge of the couch and should be taking off walking soon. Crawls around the apartment like a locomotive, and is healthy, happy, and (in his mom’s view) “awesome!” Tommy’s epilepsy seems to be improving for now, and that has been a relief, too.

Tim is in Denver part of this week. Don’t know if he’ll have time to connect with Todd HQ. He’s all over the place with work, and he and Evangelina are making final preparations for their trip to Vienna next month; a week there “free” courtesy of the Austrian piano company she represents in The Piano Store in Montana. We’re looking forward to another of E’s exceptional scrapbooks.

Crucita’s office was recently renovated, so she decided to redecorate. The most eye-catching addition s a 5.5 ft wide, hand painted folding fan with a seascape featuring dolphins and other sea creatures. Pretty cool! She still garners many positive comments about the work she’s doing as the Attendance Queen, and students are even coming to her to get advice and direction on a wide variety of topics. She’s having quite an impact in ways I’m sure no one could have predicted, although those of who know her best don’t find this at all unexpected.

For me, JCAHO is looming on the horizon, and the “Shared Visions – New Pathways” is the most amazing and thoroughgoing transformation I’ve ever seen; it’s sheer genius from the standpoint of wiping out past preparation rituals. I recall the aphorism we came up with at the JCAHO-sponsored training in Albuquerque in 1981 (’83?) just before our first Corporate Survey. “Quality Assurance (later the Oryx Initiative) is a barely definable phenomenon, espoused by a bodacious bureaucracy, which has become a formidable and indefatigable administrative Chimera for health-care professionals thereby assuring said bureaucracy it can attain the quintessential goal of all bureaucracies which is self-promulgated eternal justification for existence, and which, not coincidentally, also means an endless supply of bucks.

Make it a great weekend. Pray for Peace, work for justice, live with integrity as you always do, and share the love. I’m praying for you.

Chick