Sitting in the waiting room at the hospital and gazing out the window at the site where the fast food McDonald’s used to be.  It was just across the street and probably originally set up for the convince of staff and patients.  But it had seen better days and finally economics caught up with it and it disappeared in the wink of an eye.  Now there is a multistory building underway on the footprint.

Well, I never made it to the fireworks last night.  I fell asleep on the couch with IPad in hand.  That’s an OK thing.

So, today at the hospital for my 99th treatment!  I don’t know if I am bragging or complaining really.  I am so happy that I have my friends here to banter with.  Coming here to face the reality of the treatment center without them would be deadly.  I am looking around the waiting room and half of the folks here are looking pretty deadly.  Maybe I can pray for them as I sit.

Here I am at the comfy chair.  There is a man next to me that plays a Peruvian flute for his wife.  It is a very soothing sound.  The hospital could employ him to play.  Or maybe we could all chip in.

Well, I’ve been dropping hints all over the place that my next treatment is my 100th.  That is going to be Tuesday July 18th.  I know I usually get treatments on Wednesday but this is an exception.  I got one of the nurses to make carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for us here.  Sister Joyce is coming over to the Island that afternoon so the Phil’s Camino gang can all get together to celebrate with here at the ranch.

My nurse Becca is learning ukulele with a bunch of the other nurses.  How fun!  I have always considered myself so unmusical, it would be good therapy to take something like that up.  That’s what I need, a new hobby.

OK, I’ve blabbed on enough.  Time to go, maybe I can drum up some more cupcakes.  Love, Felipe.

I got out to the corn this morning and what did I see but two of my neighbors in there weeding today’s row.  I have been trying to get one eighty foot row done per day, my quota.  So the three of us got the quota done in no time.

So, now it is later in the day and I need to get going here in a few minutes to watch the fireworks in the harbor.  They are pretty darn spectacular for a little dinky place like here.  There is a few anonymous high rollers that chip in for that.  There is a big barge that they tow in that has the whole show onboard and the guy in charge fires it off remotely.  It’s all happening over the water, safety first or wait a minute isn’t down to third now.  I’ll have to check.

Have to mention that we had a great visit yesterday afternoon from a group from Spokane that came to walk and be with us.  Nice folks, we had fun.  Six all together so there was eight of us at tapas.  They brought food and wine.  All kinds of folks make it in here if they are carrying bags from Trader Joe’s.

It feels like Sunday today but no it is Tuesday.  I am off to the hospital tomorrow for my 99th treatment.  I’m having too much fun out on the ranch for that monkey business but oh well.  Jessika is taking me.  Let see we are going to stop at Target for jeans and Trader Joe’s for wine and olives.

There a bunch of robins in the cherry tree over my head hungry after the fruit.  They are dropping debris on me and shaking the leaves that block the sun.  They got a little light show going across the screen of my iPad.  Another case of Wild Kingdom.

Well, that is Fourth of July here, celebrating the birth of our nation.  Thanks for being with us.  Red, white and blue loves, Felipe.

Monday today and regrouping after the weekend.  Well actually it is a four day weekend around here with the Fourth tomorrow.  So maybe it is more like halftime, a lull.  Still trying to play catch up to my weed friends in the corn.  I will be out there in a moment.  Walk at 0900 and then walk at 1600 with a visitor coming then.

Father David had a homily about hospitality yesterday.  He brought up aspects of welcoming that I hadn’t considered before.  Great homily.  Maybe if you had to boil down the Camino into one word that would be a really good candidate.

The word hospitality must come from the same root as hospital.  Maybe I should look that up in the big fat paper dictionary.  Yea, it’s connected to hospital, hospice, hospitable and  hospitaler.  The Knights of St. John, also known as the Knights of Malta are also known as the Knights Hospitaler.  They opened the first hospitals which served pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem way back when.

Hospitality the bigger concept seems to be the opposite of isolation and insulation.  It is opening up rather than boarding up.  It is opening up to God also.  It is becoming part of that “flow of pilgrims” or that “cloud of believers”  or the “communion of saints”.  I think all of those are the same ultimately.

Here is one I am thinking about:  “Walking is a mobile form of waiting.”  Thomas Clark.

So far so good loves, Felipe.

I very seldom erase a new blog and start over but I just did.  Usually I have an idea and I go with it come hell or high water without second guessing.  But today I had two ideas and one won out at the expense of the other.

The thing that is really trying to get out of me is the idea that if I come back to this world I want to come back as your lucky shirt.  I realize that would mean being in a lot of different places at once and looking like a lot of different things but maybe that won’t be a problem.  Anyway, I want to be that shirt/blouse that you have had for a long time and it fits you perfectly and comfortably always.  It never seems to be too thick or too thin, too warm or too cool, too dark or too light.  It always makes you look good, not to dressy not to casual.  You want to say that you are welcoming and warm at the same time that you project a certain sense of decorum but well short of fussiness.

Whoever made me sewed the buttons on like they should and my whole being is functional although you just now noticed a little fray around one of the cuffs and oh there is the small spot on the collar that is slightly worn.   Just enough to know that you have to pamper me and know that my time needs to be drawn out and savored.

And then one day tragically I won’t survive the washing machine and you will have to prepare me for burial at sea or your equivalent.  You will be torn (nice pun),  your feelings will be mixed.  And in the end we will have a long drawn out goodbye.

Yea, love, Felipe.

Oh what a perfect day to not get burnt by the sun.  Looking forward to weed patrol again.  I am making some headway on this project.  Pilgrim Farm John calling me the Weed Warrior.  That has nothing to do with smoking anything.

It’s Canada Day to day, the first of July.  That must be something like our Fouth of July right?  We are making plans to go and watch the fireworks.  We have some really great ones right here in Quartermaster Harbor so we don’t have to travel fortunenatly.  It hasn’t been extremely dry around here so fire danger is lower than normal.  All good.

“There are things that we never see, unless we walk to them.”  Thomas Clark.

Love, Felipe.