Journal

Pat and I met in Chicago on Fri. Jan 13th - Pat coming from KC and me coming from Indiana from a work visit. Thanks to Leah for picking us up - Pat at the airport and me at the "L" stop downtown - and for making the arrangements for us to stay in the guest room at her co-op. We had a nice evening sipping wine and eating cheese and crackers at Leah's. The next day was a beautiful, sunny day and warm for Chicago in January. After a hearty breakfast at "The Original Pancake House" we took a drive down Lake Shore Drive, going through Evanston and up to the Bahai temple (second from the bottom). It is a beautiful building - the Bahai's have done a commendable job of incorporating all of the world religions into one belief system - unfortunately, they have a long way to go to meet their goal of world peace.
We went back to Leah's and got ready for the big evening which started with a superb dinner at Shaw's in downtown Chicago. From there to the Lyric Opera to see "The Magic Flute" most of which was quite enjoyable - Leah thought the first act a little slow and I thought the trials Tamino had to go through a bit flat but mainly there were some wonderful comic moments and wonderful music.
After the opera, we stopped at the local bar where Brian hangs out to let him know we still think about him. He was pleasant and gave us all hugs, but didn't indicate that he was going to do anything to change his life style. It's sad to not be able to do anything that will help in the long term. Sunday, Pat flew back to KC and I flew on to San Francisco. Thanks again to Leah for taxiing us to our departure points.

I recently read "The Red Tent" which Leah loaned me. It was an interesting book and the descriptions of daily life of Jacob and his wives and children was quite well done. The story made me curious about how closely it correlated with the biblical rendition - about all I remembered about Jacob was that there was a ladder and Jacob had a fight with an angel in a dream. So I got out the Bible and read the applicable part of Genesis and it was amazing how closely the author followed the Genesis story including the part where Rachel hides the little statues from her father: "Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women is upon me. And he searched, but found not the images." One part of the book I was sure must be totally fiction was when Jacob and sons said the Shechmites had to be circumcised before Dinah could marry Shechem but there it was -"and every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of the city. And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore...". Once Dinah goes to Egypt then it is all fiction wi†h the exception of the Joseph story. I also found interesting that the phrase "gave up the ghost" was from Genesis - "And Isaac gave up the ghost and died".