Last week I mailed two large packages to my son in Washington D.C. The idea is for him to transport a lot of our Christmas gifts and wedding clothing to Bangalore for us. Then during the first month of our trip as we’re traveling in Allahabad and Delhi we can travel lighter. We don’t want a repeat of our Riding the Rails Americano Style which you can read about in my old posts at www.onehandfulofrice.org

We drove over to McCall last Monday to visit our daughter and her family. While enjoying our time there with the family we got word that Josh’s apartment was burning. He lives on the 7th floor of a large building and the ninth and tenth floors were entirely destroyed. Once he was out safely he had to wait for several days before being allowed back in to assess the damage. He was happy to report just a small amount of water damage, but is still unable to move back in as firemen and other powers that be inspect for wiring damage and so forth. Still, he could have lost everything he owned in just the short span of an hour or so.

We do experience “close calls” once in a while. How quickly a routine day can change into one never to be forgotten. There were no injuries this time, just a lot of property damage. Now I’m hoping for the same good news about my two packages. At last word, they haven’t been delivered. Come on, Post Office, do your duty and get my saris to the church on time.