After a rather emotionally draining evening, this morning’s photo shoot was comic relief. Soul Magazine (an African women’s publication) is doing an article that focuses on Thabani. In this case I’m simply “the white brother hanging with T”. First of all we were supposed to show up early to have our hair styled except that we have none! Then they went to work plastering make-up all over our faces in a feeble attempt to make us look handsome. Next they handed us clothes to wear for the shoot that made us look like we were 20 year olds again. I could barely fit in mine. Thabani was walking kinda funny…I’m just saying. Of course Elizabeth only made it worse when I walked out of the bathroom and she started laughing out loud saying she didn’t know who I was, followed by “Oh that’s so not you.” Thanks for the confidence builder babe!!! I’m sure if Marie was there Thabani would have got the same abuse. Then we had to act like models but be “natural”. There was nothing “natural” about any of this! In fact they kept trying to get us to smile. Smile, this was agony. They wanted us to walk closely together looking at the book. Walking “closely together” is not natural for men. I decided to try and put my arm on him to keep us from drifting apart but then they started laughing saying we had better not do that as we looked like a couple! After what seemed like 400 shots of the same pose we were finally finished and we got to do a few fun shots. Both of us couldn’t move fast enough to get out of the clothes and get back to being boring middle aged men.  What an experience – but we do thank Soul for taking a chance with us and look forward to seeing the July issue!

From there we headed over to the mall so Elizabeth could get a few things before she went home. It’s hard for me to imagine that she is leaving tomorrow. I will miss her terribly as she has been my constant companion throughout this whole book launch season. Frankly, I do not think I could have done this without her. She got me to the interviews, calmed me down when my nerves wanted to get the best of me and reassured me when my confidence started to erode. She is the living embodiment of a helpmate and I feel fortunate to have her for my wife. We are partners on this journey to an unknown destination. She is not along for the ride but a daily contributor to figuring out how we are going to do all this. Somehow knowing she is with me along the path is very reassuring and allows me at times to take a leap of faith across thresholds that I have no idea where they lead. I look forward to the day we can work side by side on a daily basis. She is an invaluable asset!

This evening we were invited to participate in Friday Shabbat with Paul & Rusty Davis. For me, not only is it a wonderful tradition but always an exciting adventure as you never know who you will meet there until you arrive. This evening the table was full with family and friends. Simon their oldest son is still stranded here waiting to catch a flight back to the UK. Simon brought his own son Milo with him on this trip so the little guy is getting extra spoiling by his Grandpa and Grandma Davis being the only grandchild in the house. After a wonderful evening of food, fellowship and laughing at the baboon stories we headed home to get some sleep before another day of interviews and meetings.