A Special Weekend of Hugs

What a wonderful weekend we've had! My AHEC crew is a very huggy bunch and there were lots and lots of hugs yesterday as we visited and ate and visited some more. Most of the folks involved in rural health care are huggers. It was always fun to go to a conference and go from hug to hug as you met old friends -- and made new ones.

The hugs continued this morning. We were up early, stopped at the nearby McDonalds for breakfast to go and drove the eighty-some miles to Menno Mennonite Church. Mennonites are huggers too. And of course, this is our church family, so there were lots of extra special hugs.

I am basically a rather reserved introvert. I know, I know, I can manage a public persona that seems to be comfortable in a large group and I can fairly easily give a presentation to a big group of people. But, walking into a new group of people has never been comfortable for me and making "small talk" is not easy. If I had my druthers, I'd rather be home with a book, or visiting with a small group of people.

All of which means that it is very special for me to be comfortable enough with a group of people to exchange hugs. And while I love giving and getting hugs with people I care about, I am very uncomfortable being touched by someone I don't know. So when I say it was a wonderful weekend, you now know how very special it was!

We just had a rather violent thunderstorm pass through. First, there were violent gusts of wind and Auntie Violet was pelted with pine cones and large drops of rain. There was a great deal of lightening and thunder and the power went out in the RV park (My friend Cathi told me on Facebook that there are 1500 homes without power on the West Plains -- where we are!). Our coach switched over to the inverter and is running on batteries. There are similar lights in a few of the RVs around us. Otherwise, the park is very dark -- except for people running around with flashlights or the folks from the cabin across the road from us who came out to sit in their car with the lights on. The storm has pretty well passed on, although we can see flickers of lightening off on the far horizon.