No – not me. My big plans today are to go over to Moorhead and pick up a prescription, and then have the salad bar at the Fryin’ Pan restaurant. Should be an outrageously exciting time, for sure.
One more stop on today’s wild trip around the F-M area (that’s Fargo-Moorhead, in case you were wondering) is the Hector International Airport on the north side of town, where our two young squires, Adam and Aaron, will be catching an Allegiant flight to Las Vegas for the weekend. For some reason, Vegas has become the long-standing go-to vacation spot for the boys. They began to travel there while both were in college during spring breaks, and they’ve just continued the practice. But wait – didn’t you tell us, Randy, that they went to Vegas just a couple of months ago? Yes. As it turned out, they actually had made reservations and paid for plane tickets and all the other accoutrements of a Vegas trip a year ago last Spring. And so it turned out that the very weekend they were planning on going was the weekend when for the first time in history, Vegas shut down. All the shows, the casinos, the restaurants shuttered their doors in the face of the CoVid epidemic. Not knowing the dangers involved as the virus spread, Las Vegas, like many or most large cities, de-invited people to come and visit. The fortunate thing was that the boys suspended their trip just as the city suspended everything. The airline, the hotel, and the other expenses were place in suspended animation “until the time comes” when they could open up again. So, earlier this summer the boys planned out and executed a different trip to Vegas. With the purpose of getting people back to the city, the flights and hotel rooms were incredibly cheap, and so the boys left their prior trip in the closet, and bought new arrangements, and had a great time. However, was that going to stop them from using the first trip? Of course not. After their trip in May, they came home and immediately planned for the July trip. Why not? It needed to be used, and they didn’t want to lose out by having the extended time finally expire. So – here “we” go again. They are all packed, and their carry-ons ready and waiting near the front door. They are going to be there on the same weekend as a huge martial arts fight is scheduled, and so they can expect that the place will be pretty much packed to the gills. Now, that’s not my dream vacation, to be sure – I like a lot of room, and not a lot of people. The boys, however, are just happy with it, and happy to get out of town for a few days, to do something far different than spending their days in the basement. We can expect limo rides, great meals and more that likely a few dollars frittered away in games of chance. But that’s part of what it means to be single and have a bit of disposable income and some time. In the meantime, this weekend also means that Cheri and I have the run of the entire house, which we own, by the way, but it always seems to be that we find ourselves more like the staff, taking care of cars and meals and other things that need to be done. But not this weekend! Cheri and I are already planning on making some of our favorite meals, that we both like, but usually are met with a frown or wrinkled up nose when we offer that perhaps we should have that for supper one night. We only have three nights, so we need to make it count. The other thing we get to do of course, is to take control of the remote control. This is a rare and awesome experience, since Adam usually guards that piece of technology, which in turn limits whatever we might want to watch. Not this weekend, however! We might even watch reruns of Downton Abbey! Oh, the joy that floods my soul… And then, Monday afternoon it will all revert to life as usual. Still, we have these days to do things differently, and that’s always a good thing… We all live with definite patterns in our lives – things we do every day, or almost every day, and much of it happens without our hardly thinking about it. It’s a perfect example of living accidentally. We coast through days and evenings doing much the same as always. There’s nothing terribly wrong with that, except that if we are not careful and alert, lots and lots of our lives can simply slip by, almost as if we have created our own pandemic quarantine. So – sometimes it’s good to go to Vegas, and jump out of that normal pattern of living, and to get surprised and eyes opened to new things. It’s also good to have at least a weekend that allows us to live a bit differently than usual, simply because the situation allows it. That’s what we will do this weekend, and I am really looking forward to the salad bar… Ok, in reading back over that all, it doesn’t sound so very much exciting. However, it’s what I want to do, and today, we will do it. I hope you take time to do what is in your heart as well, whatever that may be, and that you enjoy your day, and perhaps change up your own weekend a bit. Have fun… Saying for the day: This one comes from Marcus Aurelius, perhaps the most intelligent and insightful Roman Emperor. He is reported to have said, “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Not a bad thing to keep in mind….
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AuthorAfter 43 years of ministry, Randy Cross lived his "fourth life" and shared about retirement, living boldly and intentionally in our world. To be sure, there was some North Dakota thrown in. Archives
March 2023
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