Lori Bourne

On Not Blogging

Once upon a time I started a blog. This blog. I already had one, for business, but I decided I wanted one for more personal posts. I wrote a post every few weeks and enjoyed sharing stories about my life.

Then came Twitter.

Right now, it’s been over a year since I wrote a post for my personal blog. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say, but between Twitter and Facebook I share my thoughts, favorite links, pictures, and ideas so there isn’t much left to actually blog about.

I admire people who are still blogging. I really do. I just don’t know if that will ever be me again. Maybe for me, personal blogging was a season of life. Maybe in another year or two I’ll have the desire to share some stories as blog posts again. We’ll see.

Until then, you can find me here.

A Life Well Lived

As many of you know, I have very elderly grandparents. I recently wrote a post about my 106-year-old grandfather's life. Yesterday morning, he passed away. My parents were up in Canada with him just last month, at Thanksgiving, to celebrate my grandmother's 100th birthday. I am so glad they got to see him one last time.

My dad wrote this about his father yesterday, and told me I could post it at my blog. Here's what he said:

"My father, age 106, laid his burdens down and entered the presence of our Lord this Wednesday morning. Dad did not have an easy life. He was born in 1902 to a German family living in the Ukraine, and during World War I, Russia insisted that all of the Germans had to become refugees lest they side with Germany in the war. My father's family was forced to make the difficult trek to Afghanistan, and there his mother (my grandmother) died at the age of 46 and was buried in a mass grave in Kabul.  My father, age 12, did not have a chance to say goodbye to his mother and thought he'd never stop crying.

When the war was over in 1918, Dad and his father and two brothers, were able to return to their farm and several years later he was able to immigrate to Canada. There in a church, he met my mother who had just become a Christian through the preaching of an evangelist. Dad walked her home, asked her to marry him, and within three weeks they were married. That was 77 years ago.

I will spare you all the hardship my father endured both in Europe and also the challenge of raising five children on a small farm. To this day, we as children don't understand how he did it all: for example, having to shovel countless loads of grain years before grain augers were invented. In addition, he had panic attacks, and couldn't work for days at a time. We as children said "goodbye" to him a number of times, because he thought he was dying. We never dreamed we would see Dad live a long life.

We were wrong.

Dad had come to know Christ as Savior in the Ukraine and throughout his long life he loved God, read the Bible consistently and cared deeply only about that which was most important. "I read the whole book of Ephesians today," he told me when we visited him in Canada when he was about 101.

When he was a hundred, I knelt next to him and asked him to give me a blessing as the patriarchs did in Old Testament times. He held my head in both of his hands and prayed a prayer that "would make heaven shake" as I put it.

When we visited my parents this past May, my dad, now in a wheelchair, spoke very little. He recognized us, but only occasionally. So while we were sitting and talking with my mother, he appeared to be sleeping and was quiet the whole time. Then to our surprise, he said in a complete German sentence, "We have been speaking about the present…now it is time for us to speak about eternity and the glory of God!"

Well, Dad, now you can speak of eternity and the glory of God in a way that you have never done before. Thanks for all the hard work…the care you gave to me and my siblings. Thanks for the hundreds of hours of prayers offered up on behalf of all of us. I can only hope those prayers will be answered.

Now my dear mother, who enjoyed her 100th birthday party three weeks ago, is a widow, anxiously awaiting her own entry into heaven. She often prayed Dad would die before she did so that she would know he was well taken care of. God answered that prayer."

___________________________________________________

Many people have told me that I have an amazing family, and that is very true. I do not take any of it for granted - the unconditional love, the support, the faith, the strong family bond.

I have a cousin, Dallas, who was killed in a car accident in 1981 at the age of 16. My own firstborn daughter was stillborn 13 years ago. Today I have been picturing my cousin, my daughter, and my grandfather hanging out in heaven. I think they're having a great time.

All Things

I've been meaning to write a new post for this blog for awhile but I've been really busy. I wasn't sure what to write about - my youthful obsession with David Letterman, Christmas memories through the years - but tonight I realized what I'd like to share. I love to tell stories, so let me tell you an amazing story.

Five years ago exactly, my youngest sister, Lisa, and I were both pregnant. I was due in the middle of December and she in the middle of January. We were both having girls, and both of us were excited about our Christmas babies. But for Lisa, there was sorrow mixed in with joy.

Nine months earlier, Lisa's husband Ben, a Lieutenant in the Army, had been sent to Iraq at the beginning of the war. Lisa and Ben, only married for a few years, had been living in Germany where Ben was stationed, and had no thoughts of having a baby yet. However, just a week or two after Ben left for Iraq, Lisa found out she was pregnant.

The idea of being alone for the whole nine months - with no guarantee of Ben being able to come back for the baby's birth - was scary and sad for her. But when she told Ben the news they quickly began to get excited.

Lisa called Ben's parents, who lived in the Chicago area, to tell them about the pregnancy. They were excited, too, but had some news of their own. Ben's dad had just been diagnosed with lung cancer and given nine months to live.

A month later, the Army allowed Ben to come back to the US for two weeks and see his father. Lisa flew back here also so they were together for a little bit. They had such mixed emotions; on one hand, they were delighted about the baby. On the other, they were worried about Ben's dad. On top of it all, Ben had to go back to Iraq (specifically, Baghdad), and his life was in danger every day.

As the summer faded into fall, Ben's dad became very ill. Lisa moved back here from Germany because she was finding it difficult to be pregnant and alone. This way she could live with my parents, and be with her in-laws at the hospital. 

By November, Ben's dad had gone into an irreversible coma. The cancer had spread to the base of his brain and there was nothing the doctors could do. He didn't have much longer to live, and Ben had to make a decision: he could only leave Iraq once, for two weeks. Should he come back for his dad's funeral, or for the baby's birth?

As his dad's health declined, Ben decided to come home and see his dad one more time while he was still alive. Ben arrived in the US the week after Christmas. His dad was still in a coma and near death, and a few days after Ben came home, his father passed away.

The family scheduled the funeral for January 4th. On the morning of January 4th, Ben put on his dress blues - his formal Army uniform -  and drove to the funeral home. Lisa was starting to feel contractions (two weeks early) and had my mom take her to the hospital.

As soon as the funeral ended, Ben drove to the hospital and got there in time to witness the birth of their baby, Abigail. Still wearing his dress blues, he held Abby and cried tears of joy and sorrow. As Ben said later, Abby was the rose rising from the ashes, the promise of new life.

Rarely have I seen such a clear picture of the circle of life. Death and birth, so starkly contrasted. Pain and happiness, so tightly mingled. Ben, at the center of this maelstrom, dealt so gracefully with everything that came his way. I have never heard him express any bitterness about missing nine of the most important months in his family's life.

Every year at this time I think about that difficult experience five years ago, and thank God that Ben and Lisa survived their tumultuous year. Ben is no longer with the Army, and he and Lisa recently welcomed another baby girl, Evelyn, into their family under much better circumstances. Where there was grief, there is now healing and acceptance.

I once heard someone say that everyone has a story to tell. This is Ben and Lisa's story, and I am honored to tell it.

The Power of a Blanket - A Story for Blog Action Day

On Blog Action Day, thousands of bloggers will write posts about poverty. By posting on the same day, a global discussion can take place about the devastating effects of poverty and how people can help eradicate it. This seems like a good time to share one of my favorite stories.

Karen & the Refugee Camp

I have a friend named Karen. She is, in many ways, a typical wife and mom. She stayed home with her two kids through the grade school years, but when they entered high school, she found herself feeling the desire to do something more with her time - to really make a difference in the world.

In 2000, the opportunity presented itself for her to visit a refugee camp in Namibia, Africa. This camp was a place where people fled to escape the civil war in Angola. As many as 30,000 people lived in tents with little food, no medical care, and no schools.

Karen wasn't sure what to expect when she went over there. If she had known what things would be like, she might not have gone. She stayed in shacks and tents where only mosquito nets kept away the numerous bugs and spiders. She watched children cry because they had no food. She saw suffering beyond what most of us could imagine. Her heart was touched. She decided that she had found her cause, the place where she could put her time and energy.

After her trip, she approached our church staff about creating a new ministry to the people of the Osire Refugee Camp. Everyone agreed that the cause was a worthwhile one, and Karen began organizing drives to collect supplies to send over to Namibia, as well as planning her return trip there.

Finding Blankets

One day at church she stopped me in the hallway. "Lori," she said, "I would like to find a way to give blankets to the people in the refugee camp. I don't know what the best way is - to buy blankets, or donate fabric and have the people of the camp make them - but could you look into that for me?"

She explained to me that nights in Namibia can be cold, and that many of the people had inadequate clothing for the cooler temperatures. But blankets provided more than just warmth; they meant security, a place to sleep, and a feeling of owning something that belonged only to you. If you died, you were buried in your blanket.

I told her I would help, but privately wondered if I even knew where to begin. It sounded like a huge project, and I didn't know much about how we would deliver an enormous amount of blankets or fabric to people who lived so far away. I sort of regretted telling her that I would help.

Later that week, I sat down to do a little online searching. I searched for "refugee blankets" and did find some organizations that were selling them for $5-6 each. We wouldn't be able to send many blankets for that amount of money. Not to mention that the blankets were in North America or Europe and would need to be shipped across the ocean.

I was almost about to give up searching when I decided to put in a different combination of search terms. New results popped up, and I soon found an organization selling refugee blankets for $2 each - already wrapped in pallets and ready to be shipped. Amazingly, the blankets were located in South Africa, which meant a short trip up to Namibia over land instead of water. The website stated there were 10,000 blankets available.

Karen and I hadn't discussed her budget, but I was pretty sure that she was looking to spend less than $20,000. I decided to go straight to the top and called my dad, the senior pastor of our church. He would have the final say on how much money we could spend.

Dad Comes Through

"Dad?" I said hesitantly. "I've found these refugee blankets online for just $2 each. They are in South Africa so it wouldn't be hard to get them to Namibia. There are 10,000 available. How many do you think we could send?" I took a deep breath and waited for his answer. Could I hope for 1000 of them?

"Lori," he said, "Why don't we just send them all?" Go, dad! I still get choked up when I think about his answer. I wasn't sure how we were going to do it, but I called Karen and we shrieked in delight together.

That next Sunday, I happened to sit in the balcony where I could look down over most of the congregation. Right before the offering, my dad told the people that he had a special opportunity for them. He explained that there were 10,000 refugee blankets that the church could send to the Osire Refugee Camp, and with about 2,000 people in attendance that morning, all we needed was $10 from each person there.

I can't tell you how it felt to watch people reach for their purses and wallets to pull out some money to give. I sat there, looking down at them, with tears running down my cheeks. I marveled at the way God works to bring people together to help others who are less fortunate.

Later that week, my dad called and said that we had received enough for all the blankets, and that the church would be contributing $5000 from the missions budget to cover the cost of shipping. Emails and phone calls flew back and forth between the church and the refugee agency in South Africa until all the arrangements had been made.

Shipping the blankets still took a few months, and Karen arranged to be at the Osire camp when they were delivered. She was there to open the shipping containers and hand out the blankets. She later told me about watching the people literally dance with joy after being handed a blanket. I wish I could have been there too.

Can You Help? 

I am not a perfect person (no kidding!). I have regrets and I have missed many opportunities to help people because I wasn't paying attention or I didn't care enough to get involved. But I will always remember the Osire blankets and the feeling I got from helping so many other people.

Most of us feel a twinge of conscience now and then when we think about how much we have and how little most people have. Today of all days, if you feel the twinge, consider donating to one of these organizations. You literally can change someone else's life forever. Here are some of my favorite charities:

Compassion International - sponsor a needy child for only $32 per month. Children all over the world have been given hope in the midst of despair when someone decides to sponsor them. Every year when Compassion is independently audited, they rank as one of the best places to give money because such a large percentage of your money goes to the children and not administrative costs.

Samaritan's Purse - they are consistently out there helping people in need. When there is a disaster like a tsunami or earthquake, they are almost always the first organization to bring in supplies. They bring food and fresh water, set up medical stations, and bring kits containing tents, stoves, and other supplies to help families recover and rebuild.

Charasia - this organization has schools and orphanages in India for children who would otherwise be homeless or sold into the sex trade. The work they are doing to rescue kids from a horrendous fate - especially girls - is amazing.

Can you help? I think most of us can. My friend Karen is currently planning her 18th trip to Africa. I was happy to donate to her cause. This time, she'll bring a team of American women to teach the African women how to make pottery and quilts and soap and other things they can sell to provide an income for their families. When women are empowered, the whole society benefits. Thank you, Karen, for the work you do. You are my hero.

My Grandfather's Life: 106 Years of God's Faithfulness

On Friday, August 29^th, 2008, my paternal grandfather celebrated his 106^th birthday. This is his story.

My grandfather, Gustav, was born in 1902 in the village of Kurgany, right in the heart of the Ukraine. His parents were German by nationality, and had migrated to the Ukraine to take advantage of land offers from the Russian government.

Life was difficult. Children were often sent to work on other farms to make money for the family. Gustav was sent to several different farms starting at the age of seven, and worked long hours in the fields.

In 1915, World War I was in full swing. Gustav’s family was forced to leave their home. As Germans living in the Ukraine, Russian leaders believed they might become spies for Germany.

The German families were given two choices: the extreme cold of Siberia, or the warmer climate of Afghanistan. His family chose Afghanistan, and began the arduous journey. Food was scarce on the crowded freight cars carrying the immigrants. Finally the family reached Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and were taken to refugee camps to live in crowded barracks with other immigrants and prisoners of war.

Illness spread through the camps, fueled by the severe malnutrition and hot weather. Several of my grandfather’s siblings as well as his mother died of typhoid fever and were buried in unmarked graves. Nothing was explained to young Gustav, who was about 14 years old at the time. All he knew was that his mother and siblings were gone. His grief was incalculable.

Death continued to be rampant, and after eight months in the barracks of Kabul the refugees went to Siberia. In spite of the cold, conditions in Siberia were actually better than Afghanistan; there was less sickness and disease.

In late 1918, the family was able to return to the Ukraine. My grandfather and his brothers had a house to live in and were able to make money gathering firewood and building railroad ties. Still, my grandfather knew that there must be a better place to live. A distant relative had migrated to Canada, and was willing to sponsor Gustav’s journey to Canada.

At the age of 25, Gustav boarded a ship from Liverpool, England, to journey across the ocean to the new world. After docking at Quebec City, Quebec, he took the train all the way to across the Canadian prairies to Weyburn, Saskatchewan. He began working on a farm for a reasonable wage. He worked for several years and saved up his money so he could buy his own farm.

He also attended a local church, and it was there that he spotted Wanda Ludtke, another German immigrant. If Gustav was to buy a farm, he needed a wife to help him run it . He heard that Wanda was a good cook, so he asked if he could walk her home from church. She agreed, and three weeks later they were married!

Here is their wedding picture, taken on their wedding day – July 25^th, 1931. (You can click on each picture to enlarge)

Amazingly, Wanda had also been born and raised in the Ukraine, about 300 kilometers from where Gustav had grown up. She was also German by nationality, and had gone to Siberia with her family during the war.

After returning to the Ukraine at the end of the war, her family had saved enough money for all of them to go to the United States. However, by the time enough money was saved, the US had restricted immigration and they were told to go to Canada instead.

After their marriage, the my grandparents worked hard on their farm, persisting in spite of drought and hail that sometimes leveled entire crops. They also had five children. Their youngest child is my father.

Here is my father's family in the mid 1940's; my dad is the little boy on the right with his hand on his father's hand:

When I was growing up, every summer we made the long drive from Chicago to Saskatchewan to see my relatives. I have many memories of my grandparents: their thick German accents, their warm hugs, and the distinctive smell of delicious German cooking that always permeated their home.

My grandpa is one of the kindest and gentlest men I know. He never talked to us about his difficult childhood, but according to my dad, he carried no bitterness towards the people or circumstances that caused him so much pain in the early years. Throughout everything he's faced in his life, his faith in God has never wavered.

My grandmother is still alive also (she is 99) and both grandparents live together in a nursing home. My grandfather, while physically still in good health for his age, has forgotten most of the people and events of his later life.

He now speaks almost completely in German, frequently quoting the Bible or singing old hymns. He and my grandmother have separate rooms (he needs quite a bit more care than she does), but they eat their meals together and I’m so glad they can still see each other.

Here they are a few years ago, celebrating grandpa's 100th birthday:

My grandparents will never leave me money or property. They lived very modest lives and had no interest in accumulating earthly wealth. But they are leaving me the best kind of legacy: their unwavering faith in God. In spite of all the trials that he faced, my grandfather always believed that God had a plan for his life and would see him safely through.

My grandparents' faith is best summed up in the words of their favorite hymn, the one they always had us sing after dinner:

Take the name of Jesus with you
Child of sorrow and of woe
It will joy and comfort give you
Take it then where 'ere you go
Precious name, oh how sweet;
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
Precious name, oh how sweet;
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.

Every time we visited them, we saw a list they had posted on the wall of all their children, grandchildren, and eventually great-grandchildren. They told us that they prayed for each of us, by name, every day. Throughout my life, knowing my grandparents were praying for me was one of the main things that sustained me during difficult times. 

It’s been a few years since I saw them last. I might never see them again until we meet in heaven. Even so, I have their shining example of faith in God – no matter what the circumstance – to inspire me the rest of my life.

__________________________________________

You can find my grandfather on the internet in a few places. First, this article in a local paper about my grandparents celebrating their 76th wedding anniversary last year. Here's a video clip that was aired in Canada last year about their long lives & long marriage. And, you can see the immigration records for both Gustav and Wanda as they entered Canada. They took the same route and the same ship, The Empress of Scotland; she came to Canada a year after he did.

Thanks to my dad and my Aunt Esther for interviewing my grandparents and recording their story for future generations.

Across the Wide Missouri

For the second year in a row, my family and I traveled down to Missouri to spend a week at a resort there. Thing is, my parents are friends with the people who own it, so we get to stay for free. My sisters and I count these perks as payback for the fishbowl existence we endured as daughters of a well-known pastor. Our husbands thank God (again) that they married into the Lutzer family. And the grandkids? Well, all they know is that this is the most fun week of the year for them.

I'll try to describe this place to you: it's on the banks of the Lake of the Ozarks; sort of a farm, but not to grow crops. There are woods and fields and herds of the most gorgeous draft horses you've ever seen. The owners like to buy exotic animals and raise them, so you'll find camels, a zebra, and emu, llama, and ostrich cavorting with each other. The house we stayed in this year - with my youngest sister, her husband, and daughter - was looking right over the fields where the animals live. I figured this out after my daughter kept asking to go out on the back porch - turns out she was looking right down at the horses, sheep, and feisty donkey.

The lake is naturally the center of activity, so we spent hours swimming, boating, and jet-skiing. It's definitely a way of life for the people who live there, and one that's a little unfamiliar to me since I didn't grow up on a lake. (Lake Michigan was close, but not quite in my backyard).

Last year when we were there, our hosts took us across the lake to a restaurant called The Jolly Roger. It's kind of fun to pull up to the dock and "park" there. It's a great place with a huge playground for kids, delicious food, and a wonderful atmosphere. I was hoping we could go there again, but we were all astonished when we heard that it burned down the second night we were there. Someone evidently left a stove on and something on the stove caught fire.Thankfully it happened at night so no one was hurt.

We all took our jet skis over to take a look at it the next day, and sure enough, where The Jolly Roger stood were just piles of still-smoldering rubble. Quite sad. The owner has vowed to re-build, so maybe we'll be eating there next year.

One of the nicest things about being there is that the grandchildren all get to play together, and since they're all close in age, they really have a great time. My middle sister, Lynn, has a son who's just a little older than my son, and then both my sisters and I had girls within a year of each other. My mom makes the most of the situation by buying matching clothes for everyone, and taking thousands of pictures.

On our way to Missouri, we decided to take a small detour through St. Louis and spend one day there. This was just for our family; I've been to the St. Louis Arch but Bruce and the kids haven't. So, we spent a few lovely hours enjoying St. Louis. The kids, to my surprise, were really excited about riding to the top of the Arch, and weren't afraid at all.

After that, we hopped over to the City Museum, which we had heard about from several people. But nothing prepared us for how amazing it was. Basically, someone took an abandoned shoe factory and turned it into a children's museum while preserving its basic structure. Then, they took found objects - pipes, tiles, pieces of concrete, pillars, marble - and integrated them into the museum as decorations and embellishments.

But the crowning glory has to be the aerial playground right outside the museum, where metal coils, abandoned airplanes, towers, platforms, and lookouts intertwine to create the most intricate, elevated climbing structure I've ever seen. It was unbelievable! You can take a photo tour at their website, but even that barely does it justice. You've got to see it and climb it yourself.

Here's a picture my husband took of the "Gotham City" area: six stories of ladders, slides, and tunnels:

My son, climbing through a metal coil 40 feet off the ground:

The kids were fearless and wanted to climb through the whole thing, so my husband and I basically took a deep breath, said a prayer, and hoped that the people who welded the thing together knew what they were doing. Quite an adventure!

P.S. The title of this post is a phrase from the catchy song "Oh Shenandoah" and it popped into my head when I sat down to write. I say "catchy" because I've heard this song approximately once in my life, yet I think it goes through my head every so often and I could probably sing the whole thing.

The Dark Knight (aka Calling Me Home, Chicago)

There was a round of commercials in the late 80's pushing Chicago as a tourist destination. Why they were aired here in Chicago, I don't know. We're already here! But they featured a catchy song called "Calling Me Home, Chicago" and I owned - get this - the 45 of that song (that's a record, for all you young folks). Visit me sometime and I'll sing it for you. Really, I will.

Anyway, I love Chicago. I was born in the city (Swedish Covenant Hospital - they'll be erecting a stature of me any day) and lived either in the city or the suburbs my whole life. This place is in my DNA. That's why, when I saw The Dark Knight yesterday, I was thrilled by all the bits and pieces of Chicago that made it into the movie.

Disclaimer: I'm sure I'll be revealing spoilers of the movie in the next few paragraphs, so if you haven't seen it yet, stop reading!

Last summer, my husband (who works downtown) came home and excitedly told me that the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, was going to be filming right next to his building. Turns out that the building across the street from his (on Van Buren) was an old post office that now stands empty. They turned it into the bank that's held up in the first scene.

Basically, when Bruce (my husband Bruce, not Bruce Wayne) looked out of his building every day, he was looking at a building that said Gotham National Bank.I saw shots of it at various blogs because lots of people in his building took videos and pictures of the filming. It's funny, because the spacing (er, kerning?) of the letters was off and it really looked like Got ham National Bank. However, a shot of the outside (showing the name) wasn't in the movie as far as we could tell.

Bruce (let's just say it's always my Bruce unless I specify Bruce Wayne) was watching the day that they filmed the scene where the school bus crashes into the bank. Strangely, the school bus caught fire - not planned - and the Chicago Fire Department had to show up and put it out. Also, several times he saw helicopters with cameras flying around his building.

Now, the very opening shot of the movie is an aerial shot swooping towards - you guessed it - Bruce's building. A window pops out (four floors above Bruce; he's on the 15th floor) and two bad guys slide along a wire to the top of the building next door (the bank). Bruce got to watch that entire scene being filmed, and also, one morning when he got on the elevator, the two bad guys (stunt men with scary masks) were on it and he rode up with them. Crazy cool.

Besides all the bank action, I was thrilled to catch glimpses of things like Navy Pier, LaSalle Street, the Chicago River, and tons of other familiar buildings. It was like Christopher Nolan didn't even bother to hide that Gotham is really Chicago. The car chase scene on Lower Wacker was fantastic!

Needless to say, we were both really excited to see the movie and it didn't disappoint. I like my Batman movies dark, and this one is definitely dark. Heath Ledger was just as brilliant as everyone said he was, and it was only halfway through the movie that I remembered he was gone. He just seemed so vividly alive.

I found a great article at CNN that talks all about why they filmed in Chicago and how they used the city in the movie. I'm delighted that Chicago's rich history and architecture was featured so prominently. I'm sure I would have liked the movie anyway, but now it's extra special.

Failure, Thy Name is Lori

There's no guilt quite like the guilt of motherhood. The second you bring your baby home from the hospital, it begins. You are completely responsible for this new life, which means thousands of different decisions to make. Each new decision means a chance to screw up.

Wow, Lori, having a happy day? No, not really. I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed, and I can handle a lot so that's saying something. Our house is now up for sale, and we've nearly killed ourselves getting it ready. Not that anything was really "wrong" with it, but buyers are really picky these days and we've tried to make it perfect. I'm a neat freak, but it's still tough to keep up with everything, especially with the kids always ready to make a mess.

But really, out of all the things that are going on, the straw that broke the camel's back (I'm tired, and tired people are allowed to resort to cliches) was that when I picked up my son from sports camp today, he was sunburned. Really, really sunburned. How did this happen?

Well, they were going to a water park today and it was an outdoor water park but I didn't know that. You know, that's an excuse. I should have asked, or just slathered him with sunblock anyway. I feel angry that the camp counselors didn't offer to share their sunblock with him, but really I'm just angry at myself.

The real thing about parenting is, no matter how many things you do right, it's the one thing you do wrong that sticks with you. Somehow the sunburn cancels out the field trips, the hugs, baking cookies, the walks to the park. All I can think about is how I failed my son.

He's going to be fine, and I'll get past my anger, but in the meantime I've got to somehow forgive myself and just let go. My son and I have agreed that no matter what his sports camp schedule, we're covering him in sunblock every day. It helps to make vows like that. But it doesn't take away the sting of failure completely.

Some might say, what's a little sunburn - we've all had it happen when we were kids. Sure, I did too. It's not so much the sunburn itself (although that bothers me too), it's the feeling that my son needed me to protect him and I didn't. I do not like that feeling at all. I knew I'd sleep better tonight if I got my rant "out there", so world, here it is: I'm a mom, and I feel like a failure.

Why Edward Norton Needs a Website

I have a funny habit that drives my husband crazy. After we watch a movie, I am compelled to look up the movie on IMDB and read about all the actors who were in it. I usually read a lot of reviews and visit the main movie website too. If I find the actors interesting I'll do searches on all of them as well. Doesn't everyone do this? I mean, this, to me, is one of the main reasons the internet was invented.

So, last year I saw a couple of movies with Edward Norton (The Illusionist and The Painted Veil, to be specific). I started Googling him and was surprised to find that he doesn't have his own website. Basically the main results for him include his IMDB page, his Wikipedia page, and a couple of fan sites. The fan sites are poorly done and infrequently updated, and frankly not very much fun to visit.

Now, everyone one knows that Norton is pretty reclusive - doesn't like doing interviews and keeps his private life pretty private. That's totally fine with me. It's one of the reasons he seems very cool. When you go to an Ed Norton movie, you don't really know what he's like in real life, which helps him disappear into a character on-screen.

However, it also means that there's no reliable place to get info about his projects and causes. He does a ton of work for charity, and I think it would be great if he could link to all of the websites related to his charitable work. This would mean additional publicity (and links) for some really great causes.

He doesn't need a tell-all website where he talks about who he's dating and what he ate for dinner and what his favorite food is. He doesn't need any kind of user-generated content (like forums, etc). Just something simple and classy where he can share information when and if he wants to.

Anyway, I don't think he should be afraid of the internet. There's always going to be information - and misinformation - about famous people. He should jump in and embrace all of the positive things that go along with having a website. You can do it, Ed!

Hong Kong, China, and Me

When I was 12 years old, my family had an amazing opportunity: we were able to visit mainland China (then, still called the People's Republic of China) for two weeks. To this day, I don't know exactly how the trip came about, except that someone arranged for a group of about 100 American college students to travel over there, and then invited some well-known Christian pastors to come and speak to the college students during the trip. My dad was one of the pastors, and they told him to bring his family along.

We flew to California, and from there, to Japan and then Hong Kong. We survived the 14-hour flight across the ocean by pretty much playing UNO non-stop. Thank God for UNO. We were able to spend several days in Hong Kong, and we loved it. The shopping...oh, the shopping! I still have some of the things we bought there, including Hello Kitty calculators and tons of jewelry. We stayed at the New World Hotel, which I still remember vividly for the rooftop pool and adjacent 7-floor shopping mall.

Then, it was on to Beijing (then still called Peking - this was 1984 and that makes me 36, in case you were wondering). After arriving at the airport in Beijing, we were informed that the man who organized the trip hadn't yet purchased our return tickets out of Beijing, and so we were required to stay in the airport until the tickets were purchased. We had to wait at the airport about 10 hours, if I remember correctly.

Not to worry - I simply whipped out my brand new Kodak Disc camera (it was the camera of the future, ya'll) and took some candids of the airport. Within no time at all, some officials came over and made it clear (though we spoke no Chinese and they no English) that I was not allowed to take pictures of the airport. My parents assured them (through gestures) that I would not do it again. The officials left, and what did I do? I snuck the camera back out of my bag and surreptitiously took more pictures. Why, Lori, why? I thought I was very cool, in a James Bond kind of way.

Then we got on a tour bus which took us to the city of Tianjin. I guess we stayed there because it cost less than Beijing. When we arrived at the hotel in Tianjin, we were starving but it was evening. The hotel was kind enough to send up some food to our rooms, which consisted of a brown paper bag containing an unwrapped hunk of meat, a hard boiled egg, and a thermos of boiled water (you couldn't drink from the faucets). Thank goodness my mom had packed granola bars and some other stuff for us to eat.

For the next week and a half, our days went like this: in the morning, my dad and the other pastors taught the students. During that time, my sisters and I and the other pastor's kids played in our hotel rooms, singing, playing games, and concocting elaborate skits and plays. In the afternoon, we all loaded up on tour buses and saw the sights...the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall. We visited a preschool (the kids were darling) and a Chinese rug factory where we each purchased a rug.

The entire time we were there, we were the center of attention wherever we went. My sister, with her blond hair, was usually surrounded by Chinese people wanting to touch her. You have to remember that the country was completely closed at this time - most people there had never seen pictures of foreigners, let alone real ones.

The food was unreal - from "brain bread" (it's not made from brains, but it looks like it) to octopus and fish eyes - we had never seen/smelled/tasted anything like it. Thank God for white rice...although it had grains of sand it in, we quickly learned how to spit out the sand like pros. We weren't given forks, so we became experts at using chopsticks.

As I mentioned, there was a group of college students with us, and since we were younger than they were, we looked up to them with rock star-like adoration. I still remember many of their names, and even though I do have an amazing (and photographic) memory, that's a little scary. One young man in particular, Derek, was the best-looking guy on the trip and we (and all the college girls) crushed on him like crazy.

I mentioned that we filled our mornings with skits and plays. We came up with one that was great (I think one of us had seen it a camp or something) and decided to work Derek into it without his knowledge. We rehearsed and rehearsed this skit until it was perfect. None of the college kids had seen it because we practiced in our hotel room while they were in their sessions.

On our last day in China, my dad let us come with him to the teaching session and perform our skit. In front of everyone, our friend Sarah (one of the kids on the trip) came out in front of everyone in a blanket and I announced that she was the ugliest person in the world, and anyone who saw her would fall over dead.
I asked if there were any volunteers, and one of my sisters came up, peeked under the blanket, and fell over. I asked again, and the other sister came up, peeked under the blanket, and fell over. Then, I scanned the audience and casually asked Derek to come up and look under the blanket. When he did, Sarah promptly fell over. The audience died laughing. It was a triumph.

We flew back to Hong Kong for another day (rejoicing to go to McDonald's after all that Chinese food) and then back to California and finally Chicago. I don't know how we brought back all of our souvenirs, but we did.

I could never record every memory of that trip, there are so many. I was 12, my middle sister was 10, and my youngest sister was 6. We were young and impressionable enough that everything we saw became a permanent part of who we are today. My love for China was so strong that in college, I majored in Asian History just to learn more about what I had seen so many years ago.

Part of me would love to go back, and part of me wonders just how disappointed I would be if everything were different from how I remember it. It was such an unusual opportunity. Maybe I will go back someday and take my own family with me. I'd like my kids to have the chance to form the same attachment to China that I did.