Greece, Day 2: I’m no George Clooney

I’ve done more traveling than most.
Mind you, I’m no George Clooney, but I consistently travel one leg and 47 miles short of obtaining my annual upgrade status with the cattle-car airline based in my hometown.
I’m told that in previous generations, such travel was a luxury. You weren’t taller than the ceiling, didn’t spend the flight with my Lombard crammed into my seat while simultaneously wedging your knees up under the wonder of all inventions, the seat-back tray (specifically design to be just large enough to make ‘eating’ an acrobatic event).
We didn’t expect much of a father back then, so you could leave without guilt.
You weren’t electronically connected to everyone you ever met, so you could even have a chippie on the other end of the flight with almost no concern for being cut into little pieces by your significant other when you returned home.
But I digress.
Traveling today… not so much.
When traveling today, prepare your mind for the unknown.
Lie to yourself: this must be what Jason Bourne’s life is like,
encountering a new adventure hour by hour with perfect calm and ease.I guarantee that a significant part of Bourne’s Zen-state training took place while earning a Gold status.
Forget packing your favorite swim trunks for the hotel pool cleaned monthly by Jimmy the front desk attendee, you’d do better to pack an extra layer of deodorant and a barrel of patience.
At the moment of writing, I am sitting between these two:
I broke Flying Rule #9: never book a flight in person. The ticketed agent takes one look at me and says, “He’ll fit”.
You take the red-eye, addicted to your very-own TV (such control at your fingertips). Should I watch Fantastic Four or lose at Chess?
Forgetting that you’re supposed to work the next day,
Forgetting that due to a technical issue, you will miss your connection, spend 8 hours bumming around with a $20 voucher, hallucinating that the accented PA voice just changed your gate and departure time so that you must check yet again the departure screen.
Forgetting that the new flight time arrives too late to catch your third connection, so you get to weigh the comparative advantage of clearing customs at midnight to catch a taxi to a hotel and then get up at 4:30AM to be back to the airport at 6:00AM for your last flight,
Or, you can walk the entire airport hoping to find its weakness, to find where the airport Interior Designer slipped up and accidently ordered a chair or two that are comfortable. Upon failure of said mission, heading into your second sleepless night, you are forced to acknowledge that lying down on 1/8” thick industrial-grade carpet last cleaned during the Carter administration is your best option.
But hey, you get to post the most-enviable Facebook check-ins.

Greece, Day 1: Moving Closer to Pigeon Forge

I am 17 years old, a senior in high school, venturing with a group of church friends to a youth conference in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee for a proper dose of Bible teaching, slushy skiing, and flirting. Which of these most sincerely motivated our attendance, I am not sure we know ourselves.
It is the last night there, the night where the musicians play "Just as I am" until every kid within 3 counties is pouring their hearts out to God and country and their nearest friend, I am there, praying, listening, and being called by God for His service.

Embedded in my cautious appraisal of this situation is a sincere heart and clear memory of God asking me to do for Him what he asked. What exactly that was, I couldn't say. A vision, hazy yet certain.

One year later, I declare “Civil Engineering”.
Four years later, I venture beyond our borders to discover the world I will one day save.
Two years later, I am a father, a future daddy of four, and completely out of control of my own destiny. I seek, pray, and search for opportunities to go with God somewhere, anywhere, to do something, anything.
And He is quiet. He certainly seems quiet.
Often I think of that night in Pigeon Forge, battling between one of the most real moments of my life, and the tumult of not doing what I am made to do, be what I want to be.
I love my wife.
I love my kids.
I struggle to prove that my longing for the breath of God in the grittier portions of His creation does not represent my feelings for her and the kids,
that I am not running away from them or the crazy-love life we have.
Many years later, the door begins to open.
A chance decision to escape for a weekend, see a friend, sit in the back of a conference and mind my own business, and I am asked to come to a desperate place with insurmountable challenges and use the most unlikely skills to help design a residential subdivision through the middle of a property so desperately unsuitable that the entire overpopulated community had avoided it for two hundred years of city sprawl.
4 months later, and I am there again, gaining clarity, sitting on the roof of an unfinished hospital on Ash Wednesday, the soot of Jesus' sacrifice marking my forehead, staring over a sea of desolation,
praying
and journaling
and listening.
And He continues His conversation.
He picks up where He left off 16 years before.
The beginnings of clarity.
One month later I am accidentally honest with a near stranger and find myself on a ledge, facing a decision, fear in my gullet.
Do I follow His voice? How do I know? How can I be sure?
And she walks to me, my faithful wife, while I am weeding and planting and generally wasting time in the garden. She walks up to me: "be the person I married."
And I do.
We do; she and I and God and a little bit of clarity, in a decision that brings me closer to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Four years later, the journey to Pigeon Forge takes me the island of Lesvos, Aegean Sea.

sok's attempt to burn his hands

Finished my first generation of hot sauces...

I haven't named them yet. I'm looking to include a reference to my Mexican grandma, a personified jalapeno, maybe a burning ass... but I haven't quite decided on my motif. 
Inspiration for said venture must be given his due, in my almost always willing to try anything son Garrett. He generally tilts his head down, looks to see if I'm about to steer him wrong, and then dives right in, part food-adventurer, part machismo in a world of NYC-salsa sisters.

One sensory-overwhelming trip to the Dekalb Farmers Market later, a few glances at online recipes, a bit of this and that, and we've created the first generation of hot sauces. Three versions, using Cayenne (recipe A), Poblano (B), and Anaheim Green chiles (C). 

Each of the kids, in turn, responded that the results looked more like salsa than hot sauce. They were not pureed fine enough for their FDA-labeling standards. Told them to 'shut-it', and enjoy the taste. 

The Poblano is the best-tasting. With this one, I roasted the skins ahead of time. I don't know if the roasting or the chile put it ahead, but it is rather enjoyable. It will be a staple at the table for while it lasts.

Time will tell if we enjoy or ignore this adventure. It was a fun afternoon with Garrett, and I was able to experience burning fingers for the next 36 hours; that's got to be worth something.

PS - do not confuse the Anaheim Green with the New Mexico Hatch Green. Or, if you do confuse it, don't confess such to me. I don't want to be party to the heresy.