Yup, and that was the several dozen left in my room this morning after I killed at least 30 of them in my hotel foom before I went to bed last night. Good thing Maple Bugs do not upset me. Spiders upset me. Mosquitoes upset me. Ants upset me. Hornets upset me. Maple Bugs do not upset me.
Honestly, I find them kind of cute. They stand on a set of tiny legs that are bent like the legs of stick man drawings by pre-schoolers. Their antennae wave about constantly and to me they appear to be like the quirky cartoon figures my son used to draw,
They don't bite. They don't destroy things. They don't sting. They don't stink unless you squash them. They just sit and crawl around on their short bent legs, looking for the warmest place to hunker down.
Last night that place was, apparently, in my bed with the sparkling white sheets! I woke up this morning, after an excellent night's sleep to chuckle at the bug facing me on the pillow and aftergiving it a cheerful "Good mornin' darlin'!" I crawled out of bed, went into the bathroom, flipped on the light, looked in the mirror and wished the one I discovered marching happily across my forehead a happy day. What else can you do, right? The whole southern half of this province is infested with them. They are impossible to get rid of until they cycle off naturally to other places. Closing the hotel for two weeks to fumigate would be a wasted effort and expense. So, since I had seen them all over town all day, I decided to just grin and bear it. I am delighted to discover that the older I get, the less queazy I am about such things....unless it is spiders.....or mosquitoes.....or ants.....or hornets.....or........lizards....did I mention that lizards on hotel walls also upset me?
All thoughts of Maple bugs were completely forgotten 5 minutes into the wonderful presentation by Dr. Wes Hill that I attended today on Chastity and Christian Friendship in the 21st Century. I am still mulling over my day's worth of notes and would do a great disservice to Dr. Hill by attempting to express his thoughts here on this blog tonight. SO, if you are interested in Dr. Hill and the way he expresses the amazing grace of God to all believers no matter their area of brokenness, look for him and his talks on YouTube. I came away feeling newly refreshed, newly prepared to share my faith for the first time in a long time and with a far better concept of how to talk to my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ. There is a level playing field at the foot of the Cross and no one is any better or any worse than anyone else who comes to follow him. We are all broken, we are all covered and redeemed in Christ and all are welcomed into the Kingdom as we learn how to live our faith in the midst of our brokenness, whatever it may be. Just a fantastic day of teaching!
During the lunch break my friends and I headed over to the Royal Spices Indian Cuisine restaurant on Main Street for a wonderful feast of aloo gobi, lamb kababs, rice, naan and curried chicken. O my....it was good! We had great talks and lots of laughter flowed as we consumed our delicious meal. Eating out in Moose Jaw is a happy occasion more often than not with the new restaurants that have opened there over the past two years. How long any of them will be able to stay open when so many other businesses are closing out is anyone's guess, but might as well enjoy them while they are in existence, right? Of course right!
My husband was able to come out for the last session this afternoon after his own meetings so we enjoyed sharing the last couple of hours of teaching together before heading to the home of dear, dear friends for the tastiest shepherds' pie dinner we have ever had....those people can COOK! They dug the last carrots from their garden to add into the meal and there is, as most of you know, no flavour more enjoyable than freshly dug garden carrots...no comparison to the pithy, tasteless orange sticks sold in the grocery stores here the rest of the year. We had the addition as well of a large turnip and that really added to the flavours of the pie. Oooooh, my......2 of the tastiest home cooked meals I have had in ages these last two evenings. YUM! Being with such good friends for both meals certainly added to the enjoyment!
I was able to visit Cees while I was in town. Please, please, please continue to pray for him. He is skin and bone, he is plagued with cold chills, nausea, headaches and pain everywhere in his body. I wanted to cry when I saw him. I don't know how his wife is holding up from the stress...oh, wait a minute, yes I do: it is her incredible and inspirational faith in God. His next appointment with the medical establishment is toward the end of this month so I am praying like ten bears he can get help this time. Thank you for adding in your prayers.
So, now we are home again, successful meetings for us both this weekend. I am hoping I wake up in time to go to church tomorrow, but if I don't, o well. I am VERY tired and feeling every step of the nearly 4 straight hours of walking I did yesterday afternoon...after 2 hours of walking in the morning. Perhaps I have reached the limit of what my ankle and hip can take, but it felt SO GOOD!!! It was chilly, but sunny, hardly any wind. I went to the Moose Jaw art gallery, the museum, the Yvette Moore Gallery where I spent a full 30 minutes gazing at all the wonderful pottery in the gift shop, BUT I bought none of it! Are you proud of me? I tried on all kinds of clothes just for the sake of having fun and wasting time until I could check into my hotel in the late afternoon, but again I bought nothing because there is nothing I need. It was great fun. I had a super duper visit with one of the transit drivers that used to be part of my bus ministry 7 years ago and who I have hardly seen since. We talked and talked. It was so good to see him again. I am saddened by the number of mentally challenged and physically disabled former bus passengers that I met back then who have died. Bus driver Bob filled me in on the latest losses and I wanted to cry. What good times we all had together simply riding the bus and talking about Jesus and about their lives.
Well, it is nearly 10pm. I should go to bed. Maybe I should go outside, capture some Maple bugs from the troop hanging around our back door tonight and release them in the bedroom...perhaps their company would help me sleep as well as I did last night....EIGHT (8) HOURS!!! If it had been spiders in that room I would not have slept one wink...in fact I think I would have sneaked (see my special friend, I remembered there is no such word as "snuck". Are you proud of me?? teehee) my bedding outside and into my vehicle to spend the night!!
It is difficult to gear down after such a lot of fun over the past two days away. A hot shower...that will relax me and send me right to sleep! Thanks for your prayers for me/us over the past few weeks. They are appreciated and we are seeing the good effects.
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