Wednesday, February 15, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Wednesday title
Food, glorious food
At the end of forty days Noah opened the door of the ark and sent out a raven, but it soon returned. Then he sent out a dove, but there was water all over the earth, and the dove returned to Noah. In seven days Noah sent out the dove again and the drove brought back an olive leaf. Noah sent out the dove again in another seven days, and this time it did not come back.
We figured Valentine’s Day would be a bad day to eat out, and besides, Jasper was with us on Monday, so the three of us feasted at Estancia Brazilian Steakhouse on the 13th. It’s Margaret’s favorite restaurant. She eats to her heart’s content with very few digestive consequences, which has not been the case when we eat anywhere else. We were first ones in the restaurant and got our favorite table, over there in the middle of all the windows that look out on the Arboretum. Pretty sweet spot to sit.
Jasper sat quietly and ate a lot of food. Until he is six, he can eat at this place for five bucks, while our meals are eight times that. He knows how to use the server card: green for bring more food, red for stop! He used his tongs competently, first to catch slices of meat as the server cut them off the rack of  … bottom sirloin, picanha, ribeye, filet, lamb, chicken … and then dip the meat in mashed potatoes and thousand island dressing, place the meat on his fork, and put his fork in his mouth. Chew it up. Do it again. Without batting an eye.
He had beets too, and pickles, and cheese bread and polenta and fried bananas. But mostly meat and potatoes. Our server Hulwa fell in love with him. She’s a UT graduate in public affairs. What do you do with that degree? Maybe work at a nice place like Estancia for awhile?
Hulwa comes from Turkey.
“My town was destroyed by the earthquake,” she said. “But my parents are OK and that’s all that matters.” How hard was that for her to say – 6,749 miles away from home? She didn’t bat an eye either, as she told us that bit of her story. And she held on to her smile. I think Jasper made that easier for her. Neither of them had to try very hard (or at all) to just be happy to be human.
“When will you go home again?” “Ah … I don’t know. Not for awhile now.” She poured us some more ice water. The glasses were crystal clear. They did not shake at all on the table, and neither did Hulwa.
May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eye of our hearts, that we may know what is the hope that belongs to his call.
In the car Jasper pretended to fall asleep while we headed for Randall’s, the grocery store. Blue Bell ice cream was on sale for $3.99 (five dollars off). He knew where we were going, and he wasn’t about to fall asleep, but he squinched his eyes shut and tried not to laugh. He wanted to pick out that ice cream himself!
We got strawberry and butter pecan, and two lobster tails for Valentine’s Day for 10 bucks each, and a couple of day-old thick huge chocolate chip cookies. And he didn’t fall asleep on the way home either, but only when he hit the bed with Grandma. Then he was out like a light.
Noah offered burnt offerings on the altar, and when the Lord smelled the sweet odor, he said to himself, “Never again will I doom the earth because of man. Nor will I ever again strike down all living beings. As long as the earth lasts, then seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
 (Genesis 8, Psalm 116, Ephesians 1, Mark 8)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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