A few choice things.

So, it turns out that one of my roommates, along with being the head student honcho in the marine biology department at BYU-H and an expert in jellyfish, is an amateur acupuncturist.

Being an amateur acupuncturist is like being a first year airline pilot: no one in the plane wants to know this is your first time.   However, in a moment of charity, she offered to 'open the gates' of my other roommate who was having back problems.  Gates were opened, needles were stuck, no serious blood was drawn, and I was educated about the basic theories of acupuncture.   All of us went to bed considering the night a success.

Earlier in the evening, while talking on the phone, I happened to stumble across some neighbors engaged in what appeared to be a typical family activity.  Because I was on the phone, I didn't have my camera handy, but I'll post a video that looks similar to what I saw.  The children performing stood on the street and the grass separating the street from the sidewalk.  No one holding the flaming torch of death appeared to be over twelve years old.  Watch just a minute or two and you'll get the idea.

So, like this guy, just a deacon / beehive. The thing where they hold the fire in their hand to light the other end of the torch is real.  I have NO idea how it works, but it essentially took over my entire phone conversation.  "FREAK!  He's spinning it behind his head!  Ohmygosh, now between his legs and...and...what the heck!  He just picked up the fire and put it on the other end of the stick!" etc.   Meanwhile, while I'm frantically whispering the ESPN play-by-play into the phone, the rest of the extended family is standing casually by, having conversation, looking fairly non-plussed.  Imagine a gathering of people sitting on the porch watching the children play hopscotch.  If hopscotch involved an enormous, spinning, kerosene-doused torch, that is.

This place never fails to astonish and amaze.  Even sleepy La'ie, with it's five restaurants, one elementary school, two hair salons and a dusty Ace hardware, is prone to surprising moments of beauty and strangeness.  A gulp of exotic air, reminding me of where I am.

In other news, the stars were perfect tonight, I read Matthew 18 at the beach this morning and considered the debt I owed to God and therefore the forgiveness and patience I needed to show to other people, and Ben is flying out to visit tomorrow.  Should be a smashing weekend.

love and aloha.