Weekly Tour

Since people liked seeing the photos that I posted last week, I thought I'd try something out, a sort of tour of different parts of my life. We're loose around here, though, so it may not be every week, but I'd like to give you a little glimpse into my life. Today's subject is me.

This is me.



I have a very strange look on my face which is the result of trying to take a self-portrait while holding a very large, heavy, and unwieldy camera which is practically breaking my wrist. I need to start wearing sunscreen, because the sun has just barely started to shine this year and I already have about 2 million freckles.

Today I turned 26.

Here is my scar.



I got that scar when I had my surgery. The surgeon said to give it a year, and if I don't like the way it looks, to come back and he'll "fix it". I wonder what fixing it entails. It's only been two months. Those are the necklaces which I almost always wear. The story on the first (upper) one is that Elena made it for me for my 22nd birthday, then remade it for me for a couple of other birthdays after I totally abused it. (By swimming in it and stuff.) I used to wear it because it hid my lump a bit, now it sometimes hides the scar. Silly me. The other necklace is from Uganda, and my friend Crystal gave it to me. All of the pieces that I wear are some sort of gift. I like things that way because there is always a story to tell when someone asks, "Where did you get your necklace?"

This is my left hand.



Nothing much to say about that, except that you will notice that I'm married. But you probably already knew that, if you know me or if you've been hanging around for awhile. You may also notice that I don't go in for manicures. You're right. I don't. Ever.

These are my feet.



Chinua likes to call them "salmon feet" and he pronounces it the way it is written, rather than saying "sammon" like everyone else in North America. It is one of the wonderful and infuriating things about him that he considers "salmon feet" to be complimentary. He's the kind of guy who's likely to walk up to a woman and say, "Wow, you have fuzzy arms," and find nothing the matter with that.

I went into the bank the other day, and tried to be professional. I had some non-profit work to take care of, but I had to bring Kai and Leaf, so that of course was a little unprofessional. Then Leaf needed to be nursed, so there was that. Then of course Kai yelled out that he had to pee a few thousand times, so that they were finally forced to take pity on us and allow us into the inner sanctum, past the lunch room, to the bathroom. I don't see what the big deal is, personally. It's not like the bathroom is in the safe, or something. But that also, was not particularly refined. However, I had a small wound on my toe from a day that I was running around the Land and a twig jumped up and attacked me. Somehow, as I was moving my foot around under the bank worker's desk, something sharp got it and it started bleeding. I had to ask for a tissue for my bleeding toe. Let's see, can we work any more personal functions into this banking experience? Milk, burping, (because of course Leaf let out a couple of his legendary burps) bathroom time and bleeding. Not professional at all. (In highschool I was called Mucko because I was always walking around late, with the wrong books for whatever class I was in, covered in clay and paint.)

These are some strange children that I found in the woods.





It is apparently the custom of their tribe to wear tractor treads around their faces.