Week 46

By Aaron

Lost in Translation: Last week after parting ways with Cat and Violet, Joni and I stepped into a crowded terminal in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport.  All of a sudden, as if the sound was catching up to us after a time warp, a wave of intelligible cacophony came crashing in around us.  We could understand everything everyone was saying, and it just seemed so loud!  Our Spanish is improving, but is nowhere near a level where we can make out even a fraction of an informal conversation swirled around us in public.  Shortly after this, we very blatantly ignored a man trying to sell us a credit card giving him the same "Can't you tell I'm not from here?" shrug that does the trick in Spain.  After this re-acclimation period, we made a smooth transition back into our mother tongues and carried on without much trouble the remainder of our trip.

Exploring the City: As I noted on the previous blog entry, Joni and I spent about four days in Phoenix (Arizona) gathering with family and remembering my grandmother who passed away at the end of May. Though the reason for the trip was somber, I think we followed Grandma Yost’s request that her life be celebrated and not mourned. A theme for the week was doing things that grandma liked to do and go places she used to frequent routinely. This included a trip to see the Arizona Diamondbacks in their expansive indoor/outdoor stadium entertainment plex, swimming in grandma’s pool, playing a massive game of pounce, eating at Sweet Tomatoes, Boston Market, Rafael’s Pizza, and even shopping at her neighborhood Fry’s grocery. Grandma always had the best snacks; chocolate covered blueberries, cashew clusters, Cheez-Its, Capri Suns, shoe-fly pie, and tree juice from the orange trees in the yard - all of this was on hand as many relatives popped in and out of the house on North 8^th Avenue. This visit marked the first time our extended Yost family gathered in full for the first time since the four new spouses were welcomed into the fold, and we enjoyed the time catching up with cousins we see far too infrequently. It was a reminder of how blessed I am to have amazing people in my life, and I feel emboldened to stay better connected to everyone in the absence of our matriarch to bring us all together.

   

Can you spot jet-lagged Joni? 

In her defense, it was about 7 in the morning Madrid time.

We all had fun surprising Daniel and Jerod with a trip to the game - they just thought we were going out to eat at a place that served hot dogs and hamburgers!

 

 

Aaron and Isaac's unplanned opposite matching outfits!

The whole family together :)

 

Moments of sharing at the beautifully planned memorial service for Grandma Yost, that was truly a celebration of her amazing life!

Memorable Meal: A place that will always bring me fond memories of Grandma Yost is Sweet Tomatoes.  This buffet chain is possibly my favorite restaurant, and always a danger to my health.  Despite serving a range of healthy items, Sweet Tomatoes is a buffet…and everything is amazing!  Thus, I’m usually left feeling overly stuffed after functioning within a framework of scarcity mentality (I’ve never lived closer than about 200 miles from a location!) to get as much enjoyment out of the food as possible. The salad bar, with it’s selection of seasonal salads and a large selection of topping choices for creating your own alternate lettuce party, could be a restaurant in its own right.  But then you move on to the hot bar and are greeted with an overwhelming display of soups (curried carrot was my choice this time), pizza, focaccia bread, baked potato bar, muffins (blueberry, strawberry, coconut), pasta, fruit, cottage cheese, and then soft serve ice cream and chocolate lava cake for dessert. I can barely carry on writing as the sensory experience rushes back to me!  Including drinks, a group of five cousins consumed 55 dishes of food and drink. I have zero regrets.

 

Who’s Coming to Dinner: For the past few weeks, we’ve had a throng of construction people working around and above our apartment and the roof of the adjoining church. At first the men were mainly on our roof and out of sight.  But as the heat has increased (and, who knows, the project has progressed) these gents have descended to the semi-cool confines of the gap between the two buildings.  The scaffolding is at the perfect level so that, at the right moment, we can sit at the table and see eye to eye during meals.  It’s not too invasive, but with the escalating temperatures and our lack of A/C I have been known to walk about the apartment with a good deal less clothing than I’d wear to venture out in public. The noise of drills and hammers has put a bit of a kink in our otherwise quiet top-of-the-building view, and has resulted in scaring away the flock of pigeons that used to come sun themselves in the morning.

Final Notes: As I mentioned, the struggle to persevere through the beginning of a Spanish summer has begun. Surely this would be difficult regardless of our travel schedule, but the recent transcontinental jaunt has us battling jet-lag. It’s good that our schedules are growing increasingly sparse, as the afternoons tend to be dotted with accidental naps and the late late morning hours often have us restlessly discussing our fast approaching future. I’m happy to say that this disruption to our routine resulted in us finally purchasing plane tickets to return to the US - more on that in the coming weeks!