Hospitality

The holidays always make me think about hospitality. The most stressful thing about the holidays are the well-meaning friends and relatives who want to invite you to their various holiday celebrations. I think more hosting goes on in the month of December than any other month. Which is kind of sad when you think about it. It makes me wonder: Don't you like to see me at any other times of the year? Why do you insist that I visit when you know I'm getting all kinds of invitations and obligations?

Also, why do YOU always have to be the host? There is so much ego tied up in hosting. Every year all my female relatives compete to be the host of every holiday gathering. Some family members end up attending two, three, even four events in a three week period just to give everyone a chance to host. (Taking turns from year to year is just too long to wait for your next hosting opportunity!) How much of a "holiday" is a holiday spent driving around?

So for all of you who dutifully attend I sympathize and commend you. Most people think that hospitality means only to offer kindness to others and it is probably true that it is better to give than to receive. But it is often much more difficult to accept hospitality graciously.

A few years ago there was a popular saying, WWJD or What Would Jesus Do? Think about it. Jesus was almost never the host. He usually had to rely on the kindness of others. Even when he fed the 5,000 he didn't do it with his own food. He asked for donations from the crowd. About the only time he seemed to be the host was at the Last Supper, but even that took place in a rented room.

In her more lucid moments, my Grandmother, who suffered from dementia, shared with me that she felt that God didn't want her because he wouldn't take her up to heaven. I told her maybe God had something left for her to learn about hospitality. All her life, she had been the host - in her home and in her classroom and in her life - everyone came to her and she loved being a host and bestowing big or little gifts like cookies or loans.

But at the end of her life when she needed to be in assisted living, she was so disappointed. There was no opportunity for her to bestow hospitality. She could really only accept hospitality and to her that was unacceptable.

Hospitality leaves us vunerable on both ends. The host may have unwelcome or rude guests. But the guest must be gracious and accepting - a position where you may not feel that you have control, which is an uncomfortable situation for many Americans. But I think it may have been Ellie Weisel who said you do have control of how you accept the situation.

I've chosen to treat it like a prayer - an offering of gratitude, as if the host was God himself. "For even the least of these ..." I'm certain God could just have as easily been offering hospitality as well as needing it. Who am I to say, "No, thanks," to God?

New Guest Update

Well, its been a week and the new kittens are adjusting. I think they miss their freedom to roam around the yard - but they are confined to one bedroom for now - for their safety with my big kitties. Once they get real homes and can go everywhere, they will be happier I'm sure. Bennie - the fuzzier one is quite friendly and likes to cuddle. I found out that the one I "thought" was a female is a male! (I don't have a future in the animal health industry.) So "his" name has changed from Junie to Bode (BOD-ee) - like the olympic snowboarder. Now that I've figured out how to post pictures - here is one.

New Guests

Most of you know that we help out kitties at HAWS (Waukesha Humane Society) by fostering cats not quite ready for adoption, but now we've got some new visitors. These cuties were born under our deck and have been living in are yard since probably April. Last night and this morning we trapped them and have moved them into our "foster" room. They are still quite shy, but hopefully we can get them to move out from under the bed. The male (the fuzzy one) loves to play with a string on a stick and even purrs when you play with him!

They are still functioning as feral cats. I don't know how long it will take to socialize them - or if I will be able to. They are outside the accepted age for socialization (typically between 4 and 12 weeks of age).

If you know someone who might be interested in a kitten it might be better for these cats to not have to go through HAWS to be adopted. This should probably be an experienced owner who could work with a shy animal and probably someone who does not currently have another animal. There is no rush - they won't be ready for several weeks, but ask around.

Vieux Carre ...

... AKA the French Quarter means "old square" in French. Yesterday we had a beautiful and unusual VIEW of the Vieux Carre. And Geocaching gave me that view. I did this cache six years ago - the last time I was in New Orleans and had a great view then, but this time we met the owner of the cache - and it gave me a different view of the city. It seems the people of New Orleans and Louisiana - at least the people I've met on this trip - care very much about this beautiful city. Bamboozled, the cache creator, wanted to show the beautiful view of the city from the tall building on the edge of the French Quarter where he works. But besides just "showing" us around, he told us where to find some other great views and provided some awesome memoribilia that we wouldn't have found any other way - including some "Katrina Coins" pennies that had survived the flood in his home. So I'm sharing my beautiful view with you.

I Finally Have my Luggage

We called the hotel at noon to see if they have delivered the luggage. They hadn't. We'd gone ahead and started our day - visited the Aquarium of the Americas and gotten on the Natchez riverboat cruise confident that the hotel would care for the luggage while we were gone.

At 3:00, we got a call from the delivery person. She wanted to know whether we wanted it delivered to the hotel or home - because she didn't have our home address.

So finally - at 5:00 the bellhop took us back to the luggage storage for the final time and there it was.

The Luggage is Home, the Luggage is Home, the Luggage is Home!

I just got off the phone with Midwest/Frontier. My bag just flew in on United. She had already called the delivery people and said it would be here at the hotel in no more than two hours. Hooray!

At noon - it will have been 24 hours. It seemed like an eternity (especially since we started our day yesterday at 4am) But in the scheme of our lives it was really just a blip. And now we have this great "excuse" every time we lose something - its in the luggage.

I was worried - all but one pair of summer shorts and capris were in that bag and this is not the time of year to try to go shopping for that stuff - at least in Milwaukee. Maybe it would have been different here in New Orleans. And I didn't get to wear my fun summer dress on Bourbon Street on Saturday night. Just to be on the safe side I washed out my bra and undies while I was in the shower this morning.

But truth be told everything in that bag was just a costume. Who I am was not in there. I had that with me all the time. Like Dorothy in Oz, I really didn't need the wizard - I had everything I needed with me all along.

9:00 has come ...

... but my luggage is still gone. I was kind of hopeful that it might show up tomorrow. But after the response I've gotten from the airline today, I can't imagine that a Sunday is going to be much better. I think I'm going to visit the psychics in Jackson Square to see if they can give me any info.

I'm trying to look at this as a lesson - see what you can live without. Not sure I'm ready to join the six item wardrobe club. (Look it up, its a real thing.)

We had a fun walk down Bourbon Street. I kind of forgot how sleezy it is, though. We had Binets at Cafe du Monde (see picture). When we returned to the hotel we had a half-hour in the pool. It is on the roof and it was beautiful - warm and relaxing. I'm glad I realized I'd have a hard time replacing my bathing suit in downtown New Orleans and put it in my carry-on.

Where's My Stuff?

New Orleans - Day One

Tom's luggage was the first bag out. Then we waited and waited and waited ... Mine never showed. We filled out the paperwork and left for the hotel.

That was at noon.

We called at 2:30 - no one was there, so we left a message.

We called at 6:00. They didn't have it. They didn't appear to even look in their system - I kept trying to give them the bag #. I think they just looked around the room.

The doorman said the airlines usually bring all the lost bags around nine pm. - so maybe that's why they didn't see it at the airport. Hopefully!

Luckily I packed a change of clothes, a few of my toiletries (the ones I couldn't easily buy at Wallgreens), my swimsuit (temp is 98 degrees with heat index of 110), PJs, and another pair of shoes in my carry on.

I'm not dressed the way I wanted to be on Bourbon St. on Saturday night - but oh well. Hopefully they will find it by tomorrow so I don't have to spend my vacation shopping.

The hotel is beautiful, though. We've walked around town a bit - though we're looking forward to an evening low of 83. Keep coming for updates.

I'm posting a funny picture I took at the Milwaukee airport. It was at the end of the security check over a table where you can get all your stuff back together - shoes & jewelry on, laptop back in the case, liquids back in the carry-on. They called it the REcombobulation area. I wish I could Get REcombobulated today!