hello.hello.hola.

We got invited to a birthday party this weekend.
birthday parties are hard.
particulary at this early stage of understanding culture and forming relationships.
birthday parties are hard
but they have so much potential for good too.
so we take a deep breath,
and we go to them.

The way this one played out was not too far from the usual:
1. we showed up half an hour late - - too early;  we mingled awkwardly with the three other people there.
2. I tried starting up a conversation on my right.  it fizzled out.
3. I tried a couple more times (it was like begging a stranger to be your best friend - weird and sad); I just couldn't make it happen
4. we got some food to look busy
5. I saw a family from the kid's school walk in on the left (I didn't know them very well, but I was going to get to know them now dangit!)  I called them over to sit next to us - - they sat five chairs away, and we yelled over the music for a good two minutes before that conversation died out.
6. Joshua and I got more food;
AND THEN . . . then it happened: Leticia walked in with her husband and her boy . . . and we spent the next two hours wrapped up in the most fantastic conversation - we talked about the book that the psychologist had recommended to her after the parenting workshop we went to the day before at the kids' school; we talked about the way that God has shaped Joshua and my passion for the church in a special way over the past several years; we talked about what love is and how it plays out in relationships . . . Leti had never read 1 Corinthians 13 before.
("read it! read it! read it!"  I begged her "it's so good!")

I told Joshua I was almost done like five times.
I finally pulled myself away,
and we left.

birthday parties are awesome.