Happy Birthday Jon!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful, older brother, Jon. Yesterday, May 7, was his 34th birthday and I meant to post this then, but ah, well. I wish I could have spent it with him. I am so blessed to have had this man in my life for 28 years. He has formed part of my strength and my character in his childhood and been a tremendously loving friend to me in his adulthood. I still believe, and I am pretty sure I am right in this, that I grew up with the coolest older brother on earth. Experts say that the oldest sibling takes on the responsibility of forging a path for his younger siblings. If you asked Jon about this, he would say he forged quite a dissolute one. I could agree with this. I would also add that he showed me how to be bad, how to be good, how to create a war with only toilet paper and water, how to pull off a mohawk in the sixth grade, how to express, style, courage, adventure, imagination, how get things done, how to get things done in the last hour, how to love and be firm with an annoying, nagging younger sister, how to be a great friend, how to be the coolest guy in school and still not have any enemies, EVERYTHING I know about humor, and of more recent, how to always give grace to one’s sibling.
The list goes on but I don't want to go on in writing about how great he is or how much I love him. I want to show him myself. I want to spend time with him, time showing him my love. But I can't. I am halfway across the world, a balmy, third-world. Jon may feel amiss. This place feels like a mess. I should be here for now, ah, but Jon and I know to never ‘should’ on ourselves. Ok, I need to be here for now. I want to be here for now. I still miss Jon.
Next year I turn 30 and Jon and my parents and I will be in the Tuscan countryside celebrating our parents’ 40th wedding anniversary (eh Dad?). Jon and I can sit under an olive tree, or something Italian, and reminisce about the good ole’ times, the times of Scrumptious and trips to Jackson Hole. That would be a nice way to celebrate a birthday, eh?

Lions and tigers and cheetahs, oh my!

4/28/07 - Gauteng, ZA

What a day. The drive through the Rhino and Lion Park proved to give us Americans that special thrill of seeing wild African animals up close and from inside the fence. We even got to drive right up next to a male lion, about two feet from our vehicle.

"Lions and tigers and cheetahs, oh my!" That's all that ran through my head as we entered the the cat creche. I couldn't wait to snuggle with those snuggly wugglies!! Yummy! They love to snuggle back, and bite - a lot. But no one got hurt, thankfully, even when a cheetah paw came across the side of my face hard enough to knock my sunglasses of my head.

At night we went to Carnivore's Restaraunt where I felt like a big cat, eating ELEVEN different land animals! Let me name them: Chicken, beef, lamb and pork, of course; venison, wildebeast, blessbock, kudu, impala, ostrich and crocodile! I kinda scared myself, actually, thinking all these different types of meat might form some mutant mix of dna in my stomach and become Mad Game Disease. Anyway, I'm still alive, and now I feel pretty powerful next to those cats.