A Wedding, A Road Trip and Really Good Friends

It's been two weeks since I updated, so I'll do my best to capture the highlights.

After the Marathon

I spent a few days after the marathon recovering and basking in the glory of post-marathon happiness. I started looking at other upcoming marathons, planning to make better time, wondering if I could break other people’s record – like Sarah Palin who finished the Anchorage Marathon under 4 hours. I have a thing for Sarah Palin -- mostly to annoy people who hate her. But that is another story.

Suzie's Wedding

Suzanna, Claire, me and Sanjeetha

Jimmy from Morgantown

Our good friend, Suzanna, from our early Morgantown days, got married in La Jolla on May 30th. The wedding was amazing down to every detail. But probably the most meaningful part for me was reconnecting with a small group of friends that Kip and I have known since I was 20.

Long after the wedding reception, several of us lingered in the hotel, catching up on a decade of life. We talked about unplanned pregnancy and infertility, of marriage and betrayal, of careers come and gone, of disillusionment with churches and spiritual leaders, of new hopes for the future.

Through different circumstances we have all seen our expectations dismantled, not so painfully for me, but still different from what I had planned. And yet in our own way, we are all more deeply rooted than before in our belief in a good God and a lifelong pursuit of knowing Him.

It is always easy to tell a faith story after the fact, when all the messy details are cleaned up and the reward of a happy ending has come around. But a few of my friends weren’t there yet, and I deeply appreciated their honesty as I could tell they were walking forward, one step at a time, not looking back.

Sanjeetha

After the wedding, Kip and I brought our good friend Sanjeetha and her son David back to Los Angeles with us. Kip took the day off from work and spent the day cooking up a feast of Indian food. About mid afternoon he realized how much food they were making and started calling friends, inviting them over for dinner.

We ended up with quite a neighborhood party, with friends and neighbors gathering around to feast on the best Indian food ever to cross our dinner table.

Road Trip

Near Big Sur

I love this road. I've been up it a dozen times now. It never gets old.

A few days later the kids and I took Sanjeetha and David up to San Jose area to stay with her cousins. We took the Pacific Costal Highway for an 11-hour scenic trip from LA to Monterey. The three kids in the back seat were amazingly patient, but Sanjeetha and I still laughed about how different times were from some of our other road trips a lifetime ago.

Another road trip, a dozen years ago, with Kip, Sanjeetha, Suzanna, Edgar, Senthil and me. And yes, driving on the beach in Florida with Kip's parents' minivan might have been a bad idea. I don't think this old van made it all the way home. I wish this picture was clearer -- darn film cameras. It was taken during the height of our grunge days. Kip, who is on the roof, has long hair and a scruffy beard and I am wearing frumpy men's clothing. Some things do get better with age.