Brenda Lee

First of all, I'm sorry. I told all of you that I would post every Sunday, and I didn't post this Sunday. For those of you who thought I was dead or worse, I'm alive. For those of you who thought I just stopped caring about you, my heart is overflowing with emotions for you. For those of you who thought I had lost all of my money and was therefore unable to afford internet time, rest easy. I am not yet bankrupt. I was simply irresponsible. I was irresponsible with my offline time, with my online time, and most importantly, I was irresponsible with your hearts. Forgive me.

Well, now that that's out of the way, I think I've got a lot to tell you about.

I think I'll start with last Thursday. Nothing too too exciting happened, but I did go to a city in Switzerland that I had never been to before. That city is Montreux (pronounced "Maun-true" not "Maun-tro" as people at L'Abri are apt to say; in French 'eux' is 'ue' like at the end of 'true' and 'eaux' is 'oh' like at the middle of 'Geaux Tigers' [for LSU]). Whether you know it or not, you have a relationship, albeit an unknowing one, with Montreux. "How is that?" I hear you say. Let me show you. Here is the first verse from a well-known song by a band that we all love, Deep Purple:

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

So, that's where I was. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article about the song. Anyway, I went with Jon, Kate, and Chloe, all of whom are at least four years younger than me, which means that they're younger than my awesome little sister, Whitney. The thought in the back of my mind for the first 30 minutes was "These people are younger than Whitney", but I got over it. The reason the three of them wanted to go to Montreux was to get holes poked into their bodies. Kate wanted one (besides the original two) in her nose. Chloe wanted two on each ear. Jon wanted one in his eyebrow. I tagged along because I wanted to see what I thought then--and only believe more firmly now--is the most spectacular and awe-inspiring sight in all of the Land of the Switzers. Here are some pictures:



If you can't tell by the sweet mustache and firm buttocks, that's the late Freddy Mercury, lead singer of the band Queen. Apparently, there are a lot of Freddy fans in Montreux and they actually have a Freddy Mercury Montreux Memorial Weekend the first weekend of every September. The statue is right on Lake Geneva and across the street from the piercing boutique that the three young'uns so since the boutique wasn't open when we first arrived, we walked down and admired the statue for a long while. After they got their various body parts peirced, Chloe went back up to Huemoz, and Jon, Kate, and I got a hitch to Vevey (pronounced "Vuh-vay") and ate lunch and hung out down by the lake. It was nice.

On Friday, the whole group of us had a field trip! We drove to a little town about half-an-hour away called Martigny and went to a Marc Chagall exhibit. I don't really feel like describing him or his paintings, so here's a link to his Wikipedia page. It was a good exhibit. Very enjoyable.

What else? Ah yes. Sunday nights are high tea nights here. We don't really have high tea (that ended when Edith Schaeffer left L'Abri), but we have dinner and a group activity afterwards. This Sunday night was the classic bonfire.

I need to be honest with you right now. I'm getting tired of writing this blog post. I've got about an hour's worth of good, motivated writing in me anytime I write anything, be it a paper, a poem, a song, or a blog post. I've been working on this post for about an hour and I'm almost out of motivation. I will struggle on, for your sake, and for the sake of my children, and my children's children.

So we had a bonfire. Jon and I created it, and it was good. We all sat around it and told a communal story (everyone got a minute or two to talk) involving children, their parents, ogres, beanstalks, flying squirrels, and laser guns. The laser guns were my idea. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is an excerpt from the story. Actually, it's just the two times that I got to tell part of the story. I think you'll agree (without even hearing the rest of the story) that it's the only exciting and imaginative part.



Well, that's all I can think of to write right now. There are other things, I guess that I could tell you about, but I think I'll wait until Sunday. Here's one final picture for you to enjoy before you go.