Thinking About Winter in Wisconsin

Dear Gentle Reader,
The morning began with an early telephone call to a cousin who lives in Iowa. "It’s minus-eleven degrees this morning," she told me. That is cold. But then I had occasion to phone a florist in the same county. "It’s minus-twenty degrees," she informed me. Well, when you get down to double-digits below zero, I’m not sure if one would really notice the discrepancy.

You can imagine how I’m looking forward to the weather in Milwaukee!
Remember my inability to find a pair of winter boots to take with me? A phone call from a neighbor resulted in two blessings. First, she asked if I’d be interested in trying her freshly-made chocolate biscotti. (I’m not sure whether the plural form of biscotti is biscottis. Someone who’s Italian should let me know.) And then when she brought them, I told her about my boot plight. Dear Alana responded, "I have some old boots that you could try!" As it turned out, they’re one size too small, but for six days in Wisconsin, I should be able to scrunch my feet without permanent damage. I’m sure we’ll only be walking between the car and the mall in any case.

And the biscotti were scrumptious. Oh, they were the best I’ve ever tried, but then, I find it hard to resist anything made of chocolate.

Wednesday is always "date day" for us, and we went for lunch at the Great Moon, an Asian-American buffet that serves everything from pot-stickers to pizza to sushi (which I generally avoid.) Everything I sampled was delicious. About a month ago I had become acquainted with one of the waitresses, and she's even attended our Bible study "family" meeting. Like all the servers, she’s an immigrant. Initially I thought she was Chinese but she’s Indonesian, a very nice girl in her late 20s. She came to the U.S. on a student visa, but for some reason she’s not going to school. Instead she’s working six days a week, 16-hour days. All the workers live in the same house, and the conditions seem like slave labor. It does not appear to be a very good situation, and she says she never gets enough sleep. I gave her a copy of a small book called From Prison to Praise, because it explains how praising God in difficult circumstances can actually change things for us.

The weather was so beautiful this afternoon, and I’d like to send some of San Diego’s warmth to you if you live in the frozen part of the country. As a beginning, I took a few photos on my walk at 4:15 this afternoon. That seems to be the time that joggers show up to enjoy the last rays of sunshine.
Wish you were here.
Stay warm.