Missouri day 1

Sept 15

Going back and forth across time zones makes keeping track of time based on the brightness of the window curtains a haphazard thing. It was Sara's knock on our bedroom door that actually woke us. She wanted to greet us before she went to work. Marvin and Jan had already gone, taking Lilly to her day care in the process. Sara had set out a loaf of "strawberry bread" for us to eat whenever we were ready to get up. After Sara left I sampled some of it (it was delicious) while Razelle was getting ready so we could go out for a substantial breakfast.

We drove to the Custom Complete Automotive garage on Nifong Blvd to get our van's oil changed using the coupon Marvin had given us the night before. The mechanic in charge told us it would take about an hour. Across the street from this garage is a huge commercial center, comprising several contiguous shopping plazas. We walked over to the Pizza Hut to see when it would be open. As we were reading the hours on the door, it swung wide open. We had arrived at the precise moment its business day was scheduled to begin and we were their first customers of the day. Razelle ordered a plain pizza and I had a bowl of do-it-yourself salad. I brought a few fresh mushrooms and slices of onion from the salad bar to the table for Razelle's pizza and she gave me one of its wedges: a truly romantic breakfast.

The van was ready on schedule and when we went to pay for the oil change we learned from the clerk that the owner of this establishment (who wasn't on the premises) is an Israeli. We described all our van's idiosyncrasies to these guys and they asked how much we were paying to rent it. I was expecting them to whistle in shocked astonishment, but they actually thought it was a fair arrangement. That made me feel better than I had all this time about having rented this "bordello on wheels" as Razelle likes to call it (she loves to show off the mirrored ceiling and the mood lights, which either elicits an embarrassed chortle or an envious remark, depending on whether it is an older adult or younger teen she is showing it to).

We drove across the road to visit our first Dollar Tree store beside the Walmart in Grindstone Plaza. I thought Razelle would be impressed by the variety of items that could all be acquired for the incredibly low price of one dollar, but she was impatient to get out of there. I bought some soap and shampoo here to replace what I'd left behind at Deryl's, and a jar of instant Mexican coffee. This same plaza had a nail salon that Jan recommended to Razelle. She got the full pedicure treatment, provided by ladies who had emigrated from Viet Nam. While she was being pampered I was able to surf the net with a Wi-Fi connection coming from the AT&T store next door, and I used this privilege to its full advantage to catch up with email and to plot a course to the next destinations of our itinerary coming up in the southeastern United States.

Our next objective was to get to a post office to see about sending ourselves another parcel. The dolls we had purchased at the yard sale in Wisconsin seemed too fragile to dare pack into our baggage and expect them to make it home safely. We drove to the post office in the historic district of Columbia and were pleased to find free parking in the post office lot, when all around this district there were nothing but parking meters. The clerk behind the counter was very nice. He helped us select and purchase exactly the right size box and he handed us the proper forms and labels we'd need once we had the box packed up. We noticed that so many of the men and (particularly the women) looked GOOD. They were not obese. We wondered what the secret to the healthy appearance of Columbia's citizenry might be when so many Americans all over the rest of the country were losing the battle of the bulge.

We took our box back to Jan and Marvin's. Their neighbors across the street were busily decorating their front porch for Halloween, arranging pumpkins and dried cornstalks and scarecrow figures around the front entrance with the same industriousness as we remember seeing people decorating for Christmas when we were growing up. I paused to watch them, struck by the realization that we had been traveling so long by now that we were about to experience the imminent morphing of summer into autumn.

Inside the house we met Andy for the first time. We immediately felt comfortable being in his presence. He was proud of the fact that he had lost a great deal of his once-excessive weight and he looked good. He had accomplished this by following a low-carb diet. He explained that all the healthy people we have seen in Columbia are connected to the university, and when they are gone between academic sessions, plenty of corpulent Columbians with an obesity problem remain to be found. While Andy cooked for himself, we chatted about good places to eat in Columbia. He highly recommended the Fuddruckers we'd seen next to the nail salon. It sounded good to us.

Jan soon returned with Lilly – our first meeting with her. Lilly was in no mood to meet strangers; she avoided us, didn't speak vocally but rather used sign language to communicate. We didn't know the signs and they were so subtle that we weren't always aware that she was signing. Marvin and Sara also returned shortly, and with everyone finally home it was agreed – we would eat at Fuddruckers. We followed them there in our van, past the synagogue, and we noted to ourselves how near this synagogue was to where we were staying. At Fuddruckers I had a bison burger, served without the bun, as I requested. It was delicious! Salad was freely available and I went back for a second helping. Around the table Marvin asked what kind of produce was grown in Israel. I answered Marvin with a long and exhaustive list of these. Sorry about that, Marvin. Jan asked why we had moved to Israel, and I answered with the quip, "Have you met my mother?" This got a laugh. We had this opportunity to watch Lilly in action. She didn't relate to us at the meal, and that was OK. We didn't force the issue. She and her mother played Pac-man on an arcade machine while the adults conversed.

We returned to Jan and Marvin's; Sara and Andy went back to their studio to deal with the last urgent details for tomorrow's presentation in Marceline, MO. Razelle went to bed early and Jan went off to study, leaving me to work on my blog in the living room where Marvin read quietly or chatted with me briefly, before he also went to bed. I was the last to retire. After turning off all the lights, I finally went to bed, too.