1. Saturday night after dinner, we were sitting in our living room when we saw a limo pull up in front of our house. We weren’t expecting any celebrity guests, so naturally our curiousity was piqued. Out of the limo stepped these three young men with their very special cargo. Sadly, that is not the Grey Cup – nope, that will be heading to Saskatchewan tonight. Instead, it’s the Vanier Cup. Our University of Manitoba Bisons won it on Friday. One of these fellows is our neighbour. They were looking pretty beat, but still quite happy to pose for just one more picture.
2. On another note, today I had a speaking engagement at a seniors’ home in Steinbach. Given that my family roots are in the vicinity of that very Mennonite part of the province, I knew I would be subjected to the “Mennonite game” wherein nearly everyone in the room would try to figure out who my parents and grandparents were and which of the people in the room I was related to. (I didn’t grow up in that area, but both of my parents did.) Sure enough, I was not disappointed. What I didn’t expect though, was the woman who pulled me over to tell me, with a bit of a giggle, that she’d once dated my dad, back in the day. He’d taken her for a drive in the country and had tried to teach her to drive. At one point, they’d come upon a herd of pigs, and she’d become flustered and had just taken her hands and feet off of everything. I guess that was the end of the driving lesson.
3. Speaking of my dad… when we were growing up, Sunday was a sacred day. Other than preparing meals, washing the dishes, and making sure the farm animals got fed, there was no work done on the farm. Even if it was beautiful weather in the middle of the harvest, my father refused to break the sabbath. Back then, I thought of him as a little legalistic. Now I’m starting to think he was on to something. We have slowly let ourselves step away from “remembering the sabbath and keeping it holy,” and it has become just another day to get the laundry done, go grocery shopping, you name it. Today, after I got back from Steinbach, I took a nap and allowed myself to be lazy for most of the day. It was good. I think I need more sabbath-keeping.