Mary Had A Birthday

We met in Hatboro, PA at the Trinity Orthodox Presbyterian Church with family, friends, Ethiopians, and church folk to celebrate Mary Elizabeth Bird and her 90th Birthday.














Our token Asian & our token Hispanic. Jack (or Xsiaosong Xu) boarded with Mary and Ruth for several years while in school until he married and had a son. Jack is also our token Communist. He served in the red army and is fond of Mao. Which everyone, including his Chinese American born wife thinks is absolutely ridiculous. He loves us anyway. Jack came to know Christ through Mary & Ruth. He actually told us that the first time he was in church it was all so unfamiliar, so that when the offering plate came around he didn't know what to do so he tossed in his bus tokens.
'
Another funny story. I was watching TBN while Matthew Hagee was preaching a sermon on the Unshakable Christ. During which he made the point that people put there trust in many things and if you say something with enough confidence, people are likely to believe you. To get this point across he told a story of his childhood. When he was three and his sister Christina was almost 5 they had a little friend named Meredith who was 4.
'
One Saturday a call came to the Haggee home that Meredith and her family had been involved in a fatal car accident. The following day was Sunday. After church the Haggee family got in there car and Christina asked her father, "Daddy, where's Meredith?" ... her father answered, "Meredith is gone, honey." .... "But where did she go?" .... " Meredith went to be with Jesus." ..... "Well when is she coming back?" .... "Honey she's not coming back." .... "But I want to play with her!" ... "I'm sorry honey, you can't. But someday we will all be in heaven with Jesus and Meredith." .... at this point Christina began to cry. She didn't want to go anywhere where she couldn't come back. "But I don't want to go live with Jesus. I want to stay here with you and mommy." At this point Pastor Haggee was at a loss for words so young Matthew threw his arm around his sister and said, " That's okay Tina. We don't have to go to heaven. We're not Christians like daddy. We're Mexicans like mommy and Mexicans live forever." Christina felt much better.










Ruth was MC. Caelen sang Amazing Grace. Samantha put together a slide show to the tune of You Are So Beautiful. Brittnay made the cake. Monica insisted on 90 candles. Church folk set up. I took pictures and David cleaned up. I think Mary had a good time.

Scout & Phillie Follie

Phillie Follie was our first Jack. She was a freebie given with the promise that if it didn't work out we could regift. Phillie was something of a school marm. In her litle dog brain she deemed some things as very important and necessary to enforce ..... like telling Trouser not to touch the hot dogs at the cookout or Riley (Josh and Amanda's once upon a dog) not to touch the presents under the tree. At her best she was a little comforter. Always bedside if you had the flu or even just sleeping in. At her worst she was suspicious of all medication and could ferret a pill out of any meatball. RIP little pup.


Jon took Phillie's passing the hardest and would not entertain the idea of a new dog for almost a year. But I went on line and started looking up past contacts. Sows Ear Farm referred me to the place where we had picked up Trouser near Camp David and yes they had a new litter of pups. It was suggested that we meet up with the breeder at a JR trial. We followed the directions to a private estate where owners and breeders were competing their Jacks in races, hunting and obstacle courses. It was interesting .... really. Like sports. You had to be there.


Eventually we located our breeder out of the many vans and buses parked on the lawn and we were introduced to the one female pup available. And she was a disappointment. Lethargic and unresponsive and nothing like the picture on-line. So I turned and much to the embaressment of the rest of my family pointed to a batch of puppies next door, "How about those puppies." The breeder tried to discourage me from investigating any further into the neighbors pups but I didn't feel obligated to someone who had given me false advertising. And so I walked over and began a dialogue.


Sure enough one of the pups was a female. I picked her up and she curled into the small of my neck. I put her down and she sat there and looked up at me like, "What ... I thought we had something." I had to agree we did so we paid the breeder and took our puppy home.

In the car we discussed the name .... Daisy came up .... Phillie Follie 2 .... Jon opted for Scout. I believe that is the name of Bruce Willis' daughter .... or is that just Rumor (hah!). Actually that didn't factor in ... Jon's summer reading was, To Kill A Mockingbird


What can I say about Scout ..... I could say she likes people but it's more like she needs people and can't be alone and she's a little sucubus. Before I had a digital camera we got a roll of film developed .... every picture of Scout she was wrapped around someone's head ... It's like the movie Alien and that thing that plasters onto your body unless of course it's very hot and she wants her space.

The Funnies

Mom Remembers:
Jon sliding into the kitchen in his socks and boxers singing, "The "boys" are back in town."
On getting his first physical, "Mom, she wanted to see my genticles."
Puzzled response to his dad's demands, "Jon why aren't you down here!" ...."Because I'm up here." ... every paper needs some funny pages.



You can't talk about Jon without bringing up basketball! He's on a team for the summer and he's working as a counselor at Camp Winsome. He's good with people ... he shepherds the little kids around and they love it. I usually introduce myself as Jon's mother .... Everyone knows Jon.