Storm

Dark clouds gather on the horizon of late. Bearing down with sinister intent, and guile such as is rarely seen in nature. In the moments before this storm breaks the calm, nature waits. The air is calm, pregnant with moisture; heavy with the burden of knowing this sleepy afternoon will soon be torn from its bed with a start.
Lightning begins to flash all around as the sun sets. The boiling clouds draw near as if by the very darkness itself. Light fades. Thunder tears through the clouds with vengeance and malice that would melt the knees of the very strongest man to the consistency of warm butter. It is distant at first, but clear. And coming.

Wind winds its way between the trees, down the streets and through open windows. Sometimes even through closed ones. It carries on its back the rain. Drops the size of a man's fingertip begin to pound the earth. It has begun.

The storm's rage and wrath continue, now shaking the bones of children and men alike with great claps of thunder which seem to sear the clouds together—though its motive seems to suggest tearing them apart—now pounding roof, ground, and unwary pedestrian caught by its overbearing hand.

Fury, though, must also meet its end. The clouds, with their effusion of lightning, are soon borne away by the very winds that brought their wrath. Breezes, calm and cool, take the place of the wind; stars and moon begin to shine once more.

In the houses of men calm takes the place of fear while husband and wife and son and daughter drift to sound sleep in the fresh, cool air.

Tomorrow will bring new things. Another storm is likely already building it's anger, but that will have to wait until the appointed time.

____________________________________

No, this is not the beginning of a detective mystery, or some other adventure. That is what a storm is like here. I love huge storms. They remind me how small and insignificant I really am in the scheme of larger things.

The photo is from last year, but is illustrative of the nearly nightly storms we have been having this week. I love it. I hope soon to be able to record audio from one of these. When that happens I will at least post some excerpts.

I also want to take a moment to congratulate Tré on his recent engagement!

[composed and posted with ecto]

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Chasing Rabbits

Have you ever chased a rabbit? I haven't. But I imagine that it would be very difficult to keep up.

I feel a bit like I have been chasing a rabbit recently. It (hopefully) will not be fruitless, but it is very exhausting. Starting a business of your own is a ton of work. Have I mentioned that I am in a foreign country? It is very rewarding, though.

Here are a few tidbits of news that have happened recently:

My congratulations to Patrick and Nyna: They are engaged! It all went down Sunday morning, and all are very happy about it.

The wedding does not have a firm date, as yet, but probably next year around the mid-year mark.

Patrick still had to go home that evening, but he will be back. Personally, having done that a couple times, I know what it feels like: Lame. Keep both of them in your prayers.

We had the occasion to celebrate our first wedding anniversary on Sunday. It has been a wonderful year, and I cannot imagine making it through such a year with a woman of lesser quality. Nádya is the best kind of person to have as a spouse, friend, and companion in life. There is no doubt in my mind that God put us together for a purpose, and that we are where we are for a purpose as well.

I am not sure how to segue to this, so let's just jump in (or not, depending on how literally you take that...): Here in this neighborhood of Teresina there is not a city sewer system, so a septic tank is “the way to go.” It seems the tank that has been outgrown or was not big enough in the first place, so to take care of the problem they are installing a much larger one.

The hole has been dug by hand over the last couple of days, and they are rolling the sleeves, (?) which are about 1 meter across by about half a meter, into it today. It seems considerably smaller than what I remember from when I saw one dug up when I was a kid.
One last thing of note. I was looking at the statistics from this site. This little map shows where people are that visit (the yellow dots). The bigger the dot, the more individuals from that city have visited. This goes back to May.