Vacation, day 8. Ross' leather pants.

I couple days ago I found relief within the four walls of a porta potty.  (Shade.)  Yesterday was another story.  You see, yesterday was ‘jean shorts day’ for me.  But with the temperature getting to be around 100° and the humidity being at 78%, well, suddenly these shorts vetoed all hopes of comfort.  This could have been foreshadowed by the fact that all of my rings have been feeling very tight around my swollen fingers.  Why didn’t I realize that my fingers aren’t the only parts swelling in this weather?  Upon making my morning run to the porta potty, with all the sweat and stickiness that comes with this heat I could hardly get my shorts down.  Well, you know what that means.  If you can’t get them down, good luck getting them back up.  There I was wiggling and writhing, desperately trying to get the shorts up past my knees.  The problem was that with every unsuccessful second that passed, my body was only getting hotter in the porta furnace.  Couple that with the fact that this particular porta potty isn’t exactly on level ground… if you know what I mean.  Unstable porta potty +swollen body + jean shorts that will barely scrape up past the thighs… Well, that equals a very nervous moment for me.

And if you don’t quite get the picture, perhaps you remember the episode of Friends in which Ross can’t get his leather pants back on.  That’s right.  Now envision that entire clip within a porta potty and you’ll begin to sense the appropriate panic. 

With the exception of that moment, I can see how God is actually using this weather for good in my life.  Even though I might feel like I’m wilting and withering all day, the heat is forcing me to change my normal tendencies.  For instance, yesterday morning we invited several friends to join us for “dinner for breakfast.”  (Because, honey, it is WAY too hot to make dinner for dinner.)   Normally I prefer a quiet morning to myself; so I probably would have never initiated an early get-together if it hadn’t been so daggone hot.  Well, I am sure that I enjoyed yesterday’s breakfast fellowship on a level that my usual, antisocial morning time can never achieve.

Another tendency I have here at Cornerstone Music Festival is to carry around an alphabetized list of bands to check out every half hour to hour.  It’s a pretty impressive list drawn up after hours of research.  Discovering new music is a pleasure of mine and I’ve gotten quite good at blazing a trail from one end of the festival to the other.  (Brian is so gracious to keep up with me.)  This year, however, the faster I go, the hotter I get, forcing me to stay put and engage more with others.  This is not normal Cornerstone Suzy.  This is Vacation Suzy.  This is Sit-A-Spell Suzy.  Thank God for the heat or I’d probably be buzzing around exhausting myself - like a horse with blinders on - missing out on what important things are moving in the lives of my friends.  Perhaps the relentless sun is putting me in a place where I can learn how to slow down and be a better friend, how to be less interested in my agenda and more focused on the ways that life is happening all around me.