I ‘m sitting here listening to Aretha Franklin and wondering what charismatic means.  Here, I am going to copy some things from the big fat dictionary:  exercising a compelling charm that inspires devotion in others… Of or relating to the Charismatic Movement in the Christian Church… of a power or talent divinely conferred… A person that claims divine inspiration.   Sounds good so far.

Last evening I went with a small group from church to the mainland to attend a big healing service put on by a charismatic outfit within the Catholic Church.  First I heard but very inspiring gathering to get caught up in.  The big drawing card was that the Bishop of Assisi, Italy ( is there more than one?) was there to lend horsepower.  What a beautiful man, total positive energy.  I am sorry that I don’t have his name as I lost the paperwork in the flow but that is sort of irrelevant really.

The Bishop gave a wonderful homily in near perfect English.  He talked about how illness fits into the big picture.  I feel more clear personally after listening to him.   Then afterward everyone came forward for a personal blessing.  I was helping a friend who couldn’t stand for too long so we got to cut in line.  I remember grasping  his forearm as he held my head in his two hands and prayed for me.  Most powerful!

So, the day after, and attending to the day to day stuff but kind of floating along.  OK, alperfect, love, Felipe.

Yesterday, Sunday, Marie came to walk and talk.  What a lovely lady.  What a long way that she drove to be here with me, with us.  Chris was here to walk also and this was the regular scheduled Sunday afternoon Camino.   Then afterward we just slid into tapas as usual.  Of course she said something like, “Oh, you don’t have to do this for me.”  Whereupon the three (plus My Rebecca) of us assured her that this is what we do.  We didn’t say that this is what we do best but that is true also.

Marie had heard Reverand Bonnie Barnard speak in Arizona about Phil’s Camino and was excited about us.  So she was up here in the Pacific Northwest in Portland, Oregon visiting family and decided to come up to see us for herself.  That’s a four hour drive up and a four hour drive back for her yesterday from Portland, significant.

Just want to mention that Rev Bonnie will be here on Vashon this coming Sunday the 19th.  She will be speaking at our local Burton Community Church at 1100 AM.  Please come and be inspired.  I will be calling around to make sure the pews are full, giving you a warning.   Hehe.

So back to Marie briefly and then I have to get to go.  Her family is originally from Sicily and this gave me an opportunity to talk about our major Camino buddy Lucia.  We are thinking of Lucia her at Caminoheads.  So, Marie has four surviving sisters that she is going to gather up and show up here with in there future.  Five Sicilians come to work us over, can’t wait.  Thank you Marie for your visit and your contribution to our community.   Please show up any time, love you.

Still waiting for significant rain to fall on us.  Going to set up the roadside stand today and get some sales going.    Couple weeks till our early sweet corn but flowers are ready.  I am going to put sunflowers out and My Rebecca has marigold leis she creates.   Yea, stop by!  Felipe.

The grasses are mostly all golden except for stuff growing along the margins in the semi shade.   The new crop of fawns are here being all awkward and inquisitive.  People doing their best to conserve water.  It’s cloudy this weekend and it looks like rain but it just sprinkles once in a while quite casually, nothing serious so far.

This coming Saturday is the Vashon Island Strawberry Festival.  Lot of stuff going on like a parade, street fair, music all over.  There is a pancake breakfast put on there somewhere. Sometimes I go and try to do some of it and sometimes I avoid it at all costs.  But what I want to tell you about is that Reverand Bonnie Barnard is coming to preach this Sunday at our little local community church.  We originally got introduced to Bonnie through Annie maybe back a year ago.  My Rebecca got her to fly up for this occasion.

So, I am going to try and round up local Caminoheads and others to fill up the pews for Bonnie.  She will be worth the effort I guarantee.  That service is 1100 a week from today at the Burton Community Church.  I will be harassing you locals by phone and email.

I have an archery lesson to give in a few minutes and need to do some prep so have to go for now.  Hope that your day is pleasant and rewarding.  If you need rain I hope that it rains for you.  If the other way around than I hope that it doesn’t rain for you, that easy.   Love you big time, Felipe.

Today was our Relay For Life here on Vashon.  This is an event put on by the American Cancer Society to raise money and awareness to help in the fight.  The basic idea is that people walk and their mileage is recorded and then folks give so much money per mile to the fund.  So I helped out by giving a ten minute talk at the opening ceremony and then I walked six miles.   It was fun to walk and talk just like always.

So, I went to Confession at church and we are off to a neighbor’s birthday party.  Then we will try and return to the Relay afterward.  Sort of a Vashon Saturday.  I am feeling pretty fatigued from the chemo treatment of a few days ago so I think that I will leave this right here for now.

Relay For Life may be in your neighborhood one of these days and it is a good way to give.  Thanks, love you, Felipe.

There is a chance of some rain today and over the weekend.  There is a little mist in the air which is delicious.  Yea, we bitch about the cold and then it turns hot and we bitch about that.  We bitch about the rain and the it turns dry and scary and we bitch about that.  Yup.  Anyway I just found this quote tucked away in one of my Bibles and I’m going to plug this in for a TGIF post and give myself a break.  It’s entitled Attitude and is by Charles Swindoll.

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on my life.  Attitude, to me, is more than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.  It will make or break a company…a church…a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day.  We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.  We cannot change the enevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.  And so it is with you…we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

Yup, now I’m off to the hospital with Jennifer to work on our cancer hobbies.  My turn to drive today and we are allowing a little extra time to goof around.  Maybe we will work on our attitudes!  Thanks so much for being here with us, generous attitude loves, Felipe.

This is highlights only.  This was yesterday, our every other Wednesday great big infusion of medicine/chemicals/poison.  So there is that side of it and the other side is to work hard to make that fun.  I think that we got slightly (?) carried away but what is life for anyway?

I brought a little cooler with tapas for lunch.  I’m thinking about adding wine to that in the future.  We had dropped off Jennifer’s friend Ellen off downtown so she could shop so J and I had a couple of hours to play music too load, look at pictures of gardens in magazines, think that playing charades would be a good idea and have time left over to eat tapas.  Drinks as coffee, tea, nutritional shakes and soft drinks are available at the little cantina.  We had time to smooze with our nurses and Doc Gold (call sign Nugget) kept circling through checking on our behavior but trying to look like he wasn’t.

At some point Ellen taxi cabbed in and added her two cents.  Oh, but this is after I was told to turn down my music.  OK, OK,  I thought that is what ear plugs were for.  Catherine had sent me this great song known as St. Francis’ breastplate.  I will get you a link soon.  So the three of us played charades.  We were rusty but enthusiastic.  This is great Cammando training in non verbal communication which is needed for certain delicate capers.  As luck would have it J got words like corn while I got four syllable ones, story of my life.

Then my good buddy Steve-O rolled in to really amp things up.  He has a way of doing that.  He and Ellen immediately started talking Norwegian, right?  It was immensely great to see  him as it has been months.  So, interestingly enough he brings a power outage with him, timing wise that is.  This was great addition to the hospital ambiance.  All the lighting was low and all the chemo machines stopped there incessant beeping and alarming which made us seem louder.  This is the point when we were reaching our flaming crescendo (louder  than the Italians)  and at one point J’s nurse had me go sit in the corner.  Don’t you just love them?   Where is the film crew when you need them?

Well there you have it sports fans.

Jennifer and I were at the hospital today, long day.  One thing is that we have been working on our lingo.   I mean along with being a little too rowdy and “louder than the Italians”(my own unscientific  observation).  We had massive help from Jennifer’s friend Ellen and my friend Steve, I might add.  Thanks guys.  But unfortunately I am exhausted from the cancer walk today and really can’t do history justice.

I guess that the title of this needs to be explained before I check out for the evening.  I mean I have been trying to get this post written all day but too much action going on.  It feels like many evenings on the Camino.   I’d be trying to get out a blog post worth a darn after an exhausting day of Caminoheading.  Oh yea, back to the title: we have swapped out the word mission for the word caper.  So, Cancer Camandos will preform Capers instead of missions starting today.   Lingo getting some attention.

Tomorrow gang, it’s all happening.  Prayers for Ashley please, wife of my Marine buddy Matt was in surgery today.  St James is Afoot.  Love you, Felipe.

I goofed up on the date for the Fun Run.  The correct date is Saturday August 15th.  Sorry, too much sun maybe.  Felipe.

OK, we’ve had the Caminoheads Make A Will Party, we’ve had the CH’s Car Wash, yup.  We had one other thing but I can’t zero in on it.   Now it’s the CH’s Community Service Day.  Coming up on August 15th St John Vianney’s is having there first Charity Fun Run.  It is a family run of 5 k, so it’s not some long carried out deal.  OK, so here’s the kicker, I volunteered you all to staff this event.  They need 6-8 folks to do registration, water tables and crossing guards.  So I said, “We can do that! ”   So yea, Dana y Catherine, My Rebecca, Chris, Jennifer and me is six.  And maybe we will pick up a few more.   Maybe the Wiley and Riley Show will be available.

I am off to the hospital today to see my beloved Dr Zucker here in a minute.  He keeps my head screwed on straight.  So I will have to make it short for now.   Already took a walk around outside.  There is six feet of water in the well.  The horse trough is full.  The corn looks good after I dumped a bunch of water on it last evening.  It’s all about water at the ranch and in the American West right now.

Prayers for Ashley who is having an operation on Wednesday.  We’ve been praying for you too.  We’re getting beat up as we get older but we are still in the fight.   You can tell us by our black eyes, love, Felipe.