Ms. Rory in the Heart of Texas

How to get into a sari (as experienced by Rach):

1) Pick a sari. That’s anywhere from 1-1500 steps in itself, depending on with whom you are shopping/borrowing. With a full spectrum of saris on hand from friends and friends’ moms, the choice can be overwhelming (thanks Linta). Every sari is wonderfully unique, and the one you wear to the engagement ceremony should be totally different than the one you wear to the wedding rehearsal, which, of course, should be outshone by the one you wear to the wedding. If you are really hardcore, go to India and pick them out. Because they are way cheaper there. Just don’t account for the $1800 plane flight. BTW, the sari should be the approximate square footage of a typical Manhattan one-bedroom.

2) Put on the blouse and slip. If you can barely breathe and your arms are losing circulation, then you have just about the right fit for the blouse. A little tighter than a boa constrictor hug should do it. (Fortunately - or not - Rach’s wasn’t near as form fitting as it needed to be.)

3) Put your arms out and look straight ahead. If properly positioned, a 50 year old Indian lady (or four of them) should quickly swarm and spin you around. Wrap, tuck into waist, unwrap. Rinse. Repeat. 5 times. Throw some safety pins in there for good luck. Fold the sari into pleats, say a prayer, and hope they don’t fall out. Stand there while the Indian ladies huddle and confer. Throw it over your shoulder, and don’t forget to smile!

4) Once you are totally comfortable with the color and design (because gold really does not go well with blond haired fair skinned ladies), walk the runway for the kind Indian ladies. Let them huddle, confer, take you to the back room where they pull out old suitcases FULL of more bright and colorful saris, and then chuck the old one. Sit down on the couch as the Indian moms debate it out, heads tilting to the side, grimacing, and fingers wagging in disagreement. Relax (hopefully with a chai latte) as they unfold entire saris, fold them up again, and review that process with an OCD-like fervor. Find solace in the daughters of these ladies, who have grown up with this process their whole life and learned to love it and appreciate its relational beauty.
5) Agree to disagree and come back in the morning, bringing a dress just in case the 100 options don’t work out. Repeat steps 2-3, and then realize that there’s a point of no return. Go to the engagement ceremony and luncheon, pulling the random wonderfully available Indian mom into the bathroom to adjust and re-adjust. Watch as the same Indian matrons wear their ornate saris with ease and grace, while you realize you are fidgeting like a three year old. Have fun!

The engagement ceremony was about as big as a normal American wedding, and just as fun. Zeena was wearing the most beautiful sari, and we can’t wait to see her at the ACTUAL wedding, which will end up being AT LEAST twice the size of ours - no joke. Gotta love the Indian culture - they roll deep and know how to put on a party. Congrats Jerry and Z!

This evening, true to her word, Rory let the butterfly, with fully dried wings, out into the setting sun.

It was a pretty wonderful experience and hopefully replicated with cocoon #2.

DALLAS (AP) — In an exciting move yesterday, caterpillar #2 went up to the top of the terrarium to, in his own words, “hang out for a little”, and this morning, while the Badrina household was gone, it formed its cocoon. Eyewitness reports last encountered the ravenous caterpillar in the late hours of Sunday night, but paparazzi were unable to take photos due to the lack of light. Anonymous sources revealed its last known words were, “dude, get that flashlight out of my face!” It has been exactly two weeks from the time he was whisked away from the milkweed patch while the Badrina’s were foraging for caterpillar #1’s food, so experts predict another couple of days before caterpillar/cocoon #1 transforms into butterfly #1. Rory Badrina, in ballet class, was not available for comment.

Rory doesn’t talk about the current credit crisis too much at the playground or ballet class (sort of a conversation killer), but during her usual scan of Norwegian economic blogs, she noticed this chart that signifies the overwhelming presence that the US has in the global economy, and she is quick to remind us of how good we have it here, and to think globally in our actions, spiritual and otherwise. If only her cousins in the Philippines were two hours north of us…. Good find Rory (thanks, Uncle Jordan).

Each state’s economic output is analogized to another country’s GDP.

Source: http://carls.blogs.com/my_weblog/2007/01/norge_sett_fra_.html

And this:

“The parentheses below each country name is how much additional money you’d have to add to each country’s GDP to make it genuinely fit the US region assigned. The amount of money that’s left over after plugging these countries in is roughly equal to the GDP of Russia, the 11th richest country in the world. That in itself is pretty amazing.”

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/05/4-national-gdps.html

The best place in Dallas. Ever.

66 acres in the middle of the city - we bought a membership and have been enjoying the cool weather there for the last three weekends (and then some.) We are SO thankful for the springy-ness, in Texas no less. Reminds us of NoVa and April drives through the Shenandoahs.

Finally took our camera out there and, with a little propped-up-on-the-Radio-Flyer-wagon magic, we just might have snapped our Christmas 2008 pic. Here’s a little taste:

The girls doing a little posing…..

Rory and Co. went out there today for some petting zoo and face painting action. And in keeping with the butterfly theme….

Came across this post from an architecture/urban planning blog, and it got me to thinking about our foundations. I have had a lot of conversations recently about the church (community/cultural organism, as opposed to a building/meeting place/Sunday morning talk) and have been pretty good about delineating between those two definitions that are, in the Bible Belt, almost interchangeable. However, this post got me to thinking about why Jesus used an architectural parable (houses on rock/sand) to explain God’s Logos and how He Himself is referred to as the Cornerstone.

“I’ve been going through old magazines to find articles that I hope to read, re-read, or even incorporate into the final edits of the BLDGBLOG Book – and so tonight I came across the January 2007 issue of Metropolis.

There, we read about the ten greatest engineering feats of architectural history – including this short blurb about Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul:

The building was constructed of masonry, which shifted constantly during construction and thereafter. Today we use “switch-on gravity analysis,” where we imagine a structure built on the Moon and then digitally move it over to the Earth in a fraction of a second, and suddenly it’s loaded. But a structure like this changed its characteristics during construction, almost minute by minute. I can’t image [sic] how people could have had the courage to construct it.

It’s fascinating to think that the very thing under construction is in the process of altering itself. The structure has taken on agency, in other words: moving, shifting, becoming something other than what you intended it to be. That which you add to, shifts; that which supports you, changes.”

Obviously a bit of an existential and humanistic conclusion at the end of the blogpost, but it made me think through the 2000 year old structure that is the church. We look at it, in all its divided, re-divided, tacked-on rooms, all with different historical textures and cultural styles created during the that time, and sometimes we tend to think that the old parts are ugly, outdated and anachronistic, the other parts are wrong (or at least less “right”, and that the structures we inhabit or build somehow “better” or more correct or true. But is it really so? If the Truth is our foundation, and Jesus the cornerstone that keeps the structure from shifting, isn’t the end result (whatever and whenever that is) something that will be (and is) a sight to behold and treasure? Why do we insist on equating relativism with relevance or, alternately, continue to broadcast the Truth in AM radio when the world watches in HD? In the end, we think we have (or hearken back to) a better plan for the church, but the Builder and the Building itself is always exceeding it.

All to say, we are trying to teach Rory (and ourselves) how to recognize, appreciate and cultivate beauty, whether in hairy striped caterpillars or hairy church community and history.

So far, so good…..

So, we don’t quite have a farm like Texas North, but we chose to go a little different direction, more zoology and less ag. In addition to our perennially blooming orchid (now in its third year - go us!), Rory - and admittedly Dad and Mom - are fascinated with little animals that are “so cute and tiny.” Exhibit A is Kiwi, her pet turtle. While it was a little touch-and-go in the beginning, this expensive little red-eared slider has toughed it out with Team Badrina, and is turning into quite the pet. Dad especially is thrilled with its survival (did I mention it was expensive?) and loves cheering it on while it eats.

Kiwi, however, has competition now. There’s a little field here in Dallas that is ripe with milkweed and, thus, prime breeding ground for butterflies. Rory and friends cautiously stormed the field one afternoon and came out with milkweed, some with teensy-tiny little white dots on them.

One day, the dot disappeared and we all thought it was a goner. Chalked it up to a negligent Badrina Zoo/ learning opportunity. Then we saw this:

We were a little nervous because it was “so cute and tiny.” It ate a little, and four days later we thought we were doing pretty well in terms of feeding the little sucker.

Well, then it started doubling in size every two days. Little did we realize that it grows like CRAZY. I mean, its appetite is Dad Badrina, circa 1990. Three more days passed, and it was getting pretty hefty (and we got another little egg from the field).

Then, we went out of town for three days. When we returned, we came home to Fatty McFatty and his kid brother!

It’s hard to tell from the camera angle, but that caterpillar went from sitting on a leaf to being the length of the leaf. In three days! “It’s hu-normous, Daddy!”

Needless to say, Rory is totally enamored with process, and explains to anyone within earshot that in a couple of days, unless the caterpillars becomes the size of a dachshund, (deep breath) “it wiw make a chrysawis and then we get to keep it for TWO MORE WEEKS and then it come out of its cocoon and then it dries its wings wike this (insert pantomime), and then IT BECOMES A BUTTERFWY!” She conveniently forgets the part where we let it go into the wild, but in truth, I’m more worried about Kiwi’s jealous streak - it may last long past the flight of the butterflies.