GDS^3

We find ourselves back in Ohio this week at the farm where Mildred grew up. (I’m glad one of us grew up!) Our visit to Iowa was slightly longer than originally planned due to my mom’s hospitalization. We had originally intended to spend last Thursday settling in here and repacking for the short stay in Iowa, but Mom’s medical situation called for an immediate departure on Thursday morning from Ohio to Iowa. Now it looks like she’s patched up again and ready to go for a while longer. She’s had problems for many years with the arteries in her legs clogging up and had to have another angioplasty last week. A few hours after she got home from that, her heart started racing, so they brought her back and actually had to briefly stop her heart to get the rhythm back. She’s home now and will soon be talking to a specialist about a procedure to prevent any more episodes of tachycardia. In the meantime, they say that next time that leg artery closes off, it will mean bypass surgery. So we would appreciate your prayers, not just for Mom, but for the rest of the family for grace and wisdom – especially my sister Terry and her husband Howard who are the ones living closest and who play a huge role in keeping Mom healthy.

Now that I’ve spent a whole paragraph not dealing with the title of this entry, you might be wondering what in the world GDS³ stands for (GDS cubed for you non-mathematicians). Well, according to our station manager, Peter Silseth, GDS is short for “goofy dog syndrome.” He uses that term sometimes to describe their dog, Saydee. But she is not nearly as goofy as Lucy, Frankie, and Lady. They are Terry’s and Howard’s dogs. Lucy and Frankie are beagles and Lady, a labrador/springer mix, thinks she is a beagle. I’m pretty sure that Terry and Howard secretly feed them nitroglycerin, but I didn’t accuse them of it right to their faces. What a riot these dogs are! If they could talk they would be like those two ‘possums, Crash and Eddie, in the animated movie Ice Age 2 – Meltdown. Only there are THREE of them and they are way bigger than ‘possums.

But there is a magical incantation that always calms them. Howard shared it with me. Just yell “SQUIRRELS!” You might have to say it two or three times, but it’s guaranteed to make them run to the windows and make a frantic, but all too brief, search. The other thing you need to remember is that they don’t – remember that is. So, after about 15-30 seconds of looking out the windows for squirrels, they forget what they went to the windows for and resume chasing each other around and licking everyone in sight. But that’s not a big problem since, as I said, they don’t remember. Just yell “squirrel” again and off they go to the windows. It’s just hilarious.

Another of my sisters, Sandi, got to West Branch a few hours before we did, so it was a bit of a family reunion. We had a big meal on Easter with all of the above characters except the dogs, who were safely locked away in their kennels, plus my nephew Tim and his family, Casandra, Alex, and Albert. As you can see from the pictures, we all had a great time. We got to visit like we haven’t done in years and it was really sweet.

Now here we are, back on the farm, getting a little rest, visiting with supporters and family, helping prune the apple trees, and getting ready to speak this Sunday at Ebenezer and Williamsport United Methodist Churches. We’re just a little over one month from our return to the real world – Roatán – and we are beginning to long for our adopted home even amidst the great times we’re having here in the land of family and infrastructure.

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