7.31.09

Moving. Is. SO. Tiring!

Even with the new place already all set up, there was still massive arranging, cleaning (oooh, my!), and a lot of trash depositing, and hemming and hawing to do with the remainder of our things at the old place.

It was so bittersweet to clean it all out, wash the windows, and turn in the keys to our first place.

Impromptu theme night

Other than meticulously cleaning the new apartment, I am not always the most domestic or home-oriented. Sure, I cook a meal a day or so, because eating out all the time would be wholly uneconomical, and on occasion I knit, but that's where my domestic skill comes to a screeching halt, and this is okay with me.

One thing I do really like to devote my attention to, in comparison, is the nerdiness that is family fun activities. Taking a trip, playing cards or a board game, all that is fun, thought it, I admit, can seem extra lame too now that I am living with one other adult and an adolescent cat. I still love doing little lid things so to speak, so I have to be creative.

Tonight, after tidying, I was kind of antsy for some family fun, and I have been reading on Whittaker Woman all about Mrs. W's family fun times with her (granted) two young daughters, toddler son, and husband. Their family fun nights are all things I would love, Splash Mountain Night were they play with water guns, Rainbow night where each family member wears a different colored shirt - Ah, the cheesiness! So when S and went walking to the shops for a coffee, and a flier wedged in our front door for an Indian restaurant caught our eye, theme night was born! (Indian night, couldn't you guess?)

To make matters even better, as we walked to the shops in CV, there was a "FREE" box on the sidewalk with some records and junk in it (literally). We picked out two albums, one being Donna Summer's, and INDIAN DANCE NIGHT was born!!It started out with a nice walk around the neighborhood and a shuttle ride to Mount Vernon/central Baltimore where we got shahi paneer, chicken cheera, and a side of puri at the quaint place advertised on our flier - Indian Tandoor. By quaint, in Baltimore, I mean there were blue plastic table cloths, a High School Musical mirror in the bathroom, and we were the only customers dining in.

After our walk back home, we put on Donna Summer, and were her back up singers, pretty good ones at that. By the third song, most of our lyrics were parodies of "On my Honor," like...Donna: I'll try my best for you, S: Or maybe second best..Me: Just not my worst (All in falsetto, of course).
Next it's on to a Bollywood movie, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, that I saw while in India for my friend's wedding, about a beautiful dancer who unhappily marries a geeky IT guy, who eventually wins her heart by entering in a dance contest with her (incognito!!!). We'll drink a take-out chai from the restaurant, and hopefully S will like the plot as much as he apparently did the music video I showed him when I got back home from the wedding.

So I hope this impromptu family fun night is just the start of many more to come, and is the first, but by far, not the silliest.

4 Neglected Priorities of 2009*

Even though I don’t have a running theme here, I talk about what I want whenever I want and sometimes it is personal, anecdotal, or pretty general, I have been thinking recently about what we as a collective humanity have accomplished this past year, and what, in my opinion, has been shamefully ignored, by me, and many others especially in western society this past year. Weighty, huh?

Not that we don’t have other issues we are tackling little by little – gender and sexual orientation equality, health care reform, energy solutions, and responses to global terror and the spread of HIV/AIDS (and swine flu!), and that these issues aren’t hard enough to deal with on their own.

However, in my mind, the following topics cannot be ignored without dire ramifications to our societies, and should be talked about in political and humanitarian circles this year with a emphasis on what we can do and how it can help.

Here’s my list, see what you think, and think about what you can do:

1. Darfur
2. The Democratic Republic of Congo
3. Comprehensive Sexual Education for Children and Adolescents
4. Consumerism

DARFUR

It has been over 5 years since the genocide in Darfur started. To break this down, women, children, families, and communities, JUST LIKE US, except that they are in another country with a different political situation, are being killed daily, being raped daily, and are living without homes, necessities, and any independent recourse.
These persons are being murdered and assaulted by their own government, not because they are acting out against the government, but because they share the same ethnicity as that of the rebel group in Sudan who is waging a battle against their leaders. To me, this is the equivalent of September 11th happening EVERY DAY in Sudan, whereby innocent civilians are being killed because of an arbitrary connection that they have to a culture that others are in opposition to.

This conflict is akin to the Holocaust, to the Bosnian genocide, to the Rwandan genocide, and to other atrocities against humankind, except that in this case, the free peoples of the world, including the United Nations and the United States we are not intervening in an assertive, effective way after 5 YEARS of understanding the horrors of this situation.

It’s not as if I think that there are not other international emergencies that need to be addressed by the US and the UN, it’s just that I believe this is the largest, longest, and more severe situation currently plaguing the world right now, and that we are not reacting to it in the least. Since I don’t speak with authority on any of this, since all these words are just my views and quick observations on the matters, I dug a little, and found out that in the first 100 days of her post as US Secretary of State, Hilary Rodham Clinton did not act on Darfur. Not once. She did have multiple meetings with China and Russia, who pay for the weapons that the Sudanese government uses to attack its Darfuri civilians, however.

When I think of our “problems” in the US, about losing a job, about being in debt, about feeling lonely and like our carbon footprint is a little too big, I become even more adamant that we can all live a little while longer in this recession while we devote some of our time and resources to saving the lives of innocent people who have never even dreamed of indulging in such concerns.

THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGOI don’t want to fully depress anyone here tonight, so what I will say about the DR Congo is just that there are many issues and many failing responses in the DR that are starkly similar to Darfur and the Sudan. Murder, rape, political instability, ethnic violence, and a lack of safety and security for civilians have been present there for many years. Secretary of State Clinton has not addressed the issue in her first 100 days in office.

I think it is easy to start ignoring what goes on out of our own lives, but the need is still there to remember that we are interconnected, and when one person is violated or violates another, we all suffer, especially when we allow our consciences to gloss over our own responsibilities for one another. We can’t imagine the rage we might feel if someone we love was raped and murdered without any hope of justice, but we refuse to view other peoples loved ones with an ounce of that same compassion.

COMPREHENSIVE SEXUAL EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTSFinally, I am talking about a juicy topic! And one with more hope I dare say than the others above, since the REAL Act, or the Responsible Education About Life Act, was introduced this year by Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) to US Congress on March 17, 2009.

The REAL Act would fund programs with important characteristics, including:

• Being age-appropriate and medically accurate;
• Not teaching or promoting religion;
• Teaching that abstinence is the only certain way to avoid pregnancy or sexual transmission of diseases;
• Stressing the value of abstinence while not ignoring young people who have had or are having sex;
• Providing accurate information about the health benefits and side effects of all contraceptives and barrier methods as a means to prevent pregnancy;
• Providing information about the health benefits of condoms and other barrier methods as a means to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV;
• Encouraging family communication about sexuality;
• Teaching skills for making responsible decisions about sex, including how to avoid unwanted verbal, physical, and sexual advances and how not to make unwanted verbal, physical, and sexual advances; and
• Teaching that alcohol and drug use can affect the ability to make responsible decisions

So not everyone has been neglecting this important issue! But still, let me stress why it is so important.

I believe every human being should be afforded agency over their own physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional body. Sex, like money and other mediators of interpersonal power, can be used to dominate, intimidate, and oppress, as it can be used to build up lives and relationships, and bring great joy. So everyone should have the opportunity to understand their own bodily, mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional relationship to sex.

Basic education for every child as he and she develop can help them to know, preserve, and advocate on behalf of their selves as sexual beings, and to build their identities, and their families as they plan for the future.

My only opposition with the REAL Act is that it does not explicitly address homosexuality and how to protect yourself if you or your sexual partners engage in homosexual behavior. I strongly believe this is immoral when STIs, suicide rates, rates of substance abuse and depression, and unplanned pregnancy are all unacceptably high among young persons who engage in homosexual behavior because educational forums for this topic is unavailable, and so children remain uneducated and unsupported – in a word – neglected.

CONSUMERISM
And lastly, a topic which many of us like to be cynical about, and to blame other – the government, the big industries, the American Dream, for. I find it sad that when I tried to do research about what people are saying about consumerism, I did not see one article online written this year, but instead quite a few prophetic articles written from the years 2002-2007.

It is my guess that we are riding a very tenuous see-saw right now, whereby we somehow want to stop wasting resources/accrual of debt, but at the same time, we are stuck in a collective mentality that says both – Spending makes me feel good and important, and that we must spend ourselves out of our debt (I know, it sounds ridiculous, but then why do we do it?).

As a disclaimer, I want the government to spend lots of money reforming healthcare, improving education, and caring for the needy all over the world. But I also think we need to do a better job of speaking out against buying what we don’t need, or buying replacements for what we already have, just because we are used to it.

On my search, I found an article that I thought was preaching the same message we all grow up with, “You can’t buy happiness.” Then I looked at the research behind the article, which said that in fact, money does buy happiness. I assume that researchers correlated self-reports of life satisfaction with per capita income or wealth, and they found out that more money equaled more happiness. To a point.
What the researchers found was that “money consistently buys happiness right up to about $10,000 income per capita.” After that, life satisfaction stays the same or gets WORSE.

Now, to be honest, I have seen some articles this year on spending differently, on travel instead of on clothes, for example. But really, with $10,000 per person a year, how can we each buy our happiness.

I suspect even less travel, and a little more time GIVING, talking, reading, walking, thinking, laughing, and taking stock of how well our needs are so very often met even in the most tumultuous of times.

SO HOW CAN WE HELP???!



*Someone, many someones out there, spent their entire day focusing on this issue. They cared for others, for our world, and tried to make a difference in this area of betterment. They inspire me, and I want to thank them! YOU ARE AMAZING!!!

Oh, Fudge!

Stressful day!

I had a vet follow up phone call, a future job follow up phone call canceled, a current job phone call canceled (both last minute), a mental health preparedness research team meeting, where made an observation that absorbed the entire meeting time and I felt like a schmuck for asking it, because of course our team (we are ridiculously abstract thinkers) was going to seize on one little concern and run with it for over an hour.

After that, I had an actual vet appointment (well, not me, O). Feeling worn out after all of that, I took our newly purchased 1 gallon tub of fudge ripple ice cream out of the fridge, opened it, put it on my lap, and took a spoon and just ate.To end my day, I got to spend 3 hours doing work for a job I don't even have anymore (my old boss keeps asking me to fix a report I've been done with for at least a month!) and then knowing that when I wake up tomorrow, I have to figure out how to edit a research manuscript for my old masters advisor so we can publish it in a journal! And I just want to be back on the couch with that bucket of vanilla and fudge...Not thinking about work or the looming task of scouring the old apartment head to toe by this Friday when we turn in the keys.

I guess all there is left to say is at least I am doing what I love, I just wish I was doing it at a much more lazy pace!

Musicality

I'm on the couch, and I start singing Lady Antebellum's "I run to you," to myself while doing some reading.

S, at the desk, responds back with his flawless rendition of "Perfect Day" by Hoku.

Just thought you'd want to know!

Our strength will rise..

I had a talk today with a very important person to me about challenging times. In such times, it's encouraging to remember that one thing remains universal in everyone who ever lived and faced adversity - the opportunity to hope. I believe that such hope was founded on that which never leaves us, and that which is there whenever we need renewal.

Running on (an) Empty (closet)

Today I hung around Charles Village after my youth shelter training to work. I walked to Chipotle, and it was good.



I walked to Starbucks, and it was very good.












I walked back, emailed out a good portion of my work to my boss, and it was excellent. THEN, strolling back to grab a chicken parmesan sandwich for S, a shirtless, shiny man with skin tight, micro-mini bike shorts under equally short black and white camo wind-breaker shorts that, I'm sorry, can not really be called anything other than HOT pants whizzed by us. Now, runners are quite common in CV, and even on the busy, narrow, commercial street we were on with a ton of college kids, bar goers, baby strollers and puppies, people tend to like to run there. And I guess with the marathon coming up in October, this will only become more of a phenomenon. But hot pants?

Where would someone even acquire such an outfit? It's not that I am judging to be judgmental. It's just that this speedy, nipple-and-belly-button-showing creature caught us off guard, and I could not for the life of me keep from laughing. And then, on the way back home, who should shoot back into our vision, sprinting the other way? Of course. In the breezy, mid-60s, overcast weather, there he was.

I never saw his face.

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

So today was a very good today, that started out very poorly when my (now returned home!!) cat sat on my sleeping chest, constraining my lungs to the point of strained breathing, to wake me. Then I discovered that my cat was smarter than I was, given that he had woken me at 10:29 for my 10:30 meeting that morning (something I myself could not do, even by setting an alarm!).

I rushed around, took a 3-minute shower, etc., feeling really bad that I was running late for my meeting and generally feeling unprepared for life. I have been reading a lot lately - reading some more of the Harry Potter series, since I promised myself I wanted to read the last two books in concurrence with their movie releases so I could enjoy the two together, and reading an apolegetics series by Lee Strobel. Both literary adventures have been so captivating that I have been getting to sleep after 2 am all this week, and this morning was my first day to really fail at getting up after only 5 or 6 hours.

So I get to work, and my boss and I are able to flesh out this protocol in less time than we thought, and then the other research assistant meets up with us and we both get new contracts with raises! I am so glad my boss remembered to write these up, since I will need to start re-saving money from Oliver's celebrity vet visits.

Then we all proceeded to have a very fun(ny) lunch meeting at the public health school cafe whereby my boss shared her preferences for non-ugly people and I ate a delicious slice of veggie pizza. We also got different assignments to draft parts of a funders evaluation report.

I headed home, chased down O to give him his antibiotic via syringe (My cat's antibiotic is in liquid form and smells exactly like a banana milkshake, and I certainly hope this is not why his medicines cost more than mine would for the exact same condition. He still hates to take it, and proceeds to blow bubbles of it out of his lips.), and wanted to check my email. On the way home, I had been thinking alot, about how I had lost my planner, how I was so nervous about finding a job, and how the morning had been an absolute mess. So I said, okay - that's it! I am believing in myself, and I am getting on track. I am going straight-away to buy a planner, buy a netbook for the job I will get, and to get my oil changed, because getting to the job is also very important once I get it. And you know what? When I checked my email, I found out I would be getting a job, with the organization I have loved ever since the first interview! It is not final yet, but I am going to their staff training in September, and a position will be contingent on my ability to successfully complete that training (I am thinking something similiar to the TriWizard Tournament?). To say I was and am excited is an understatement. I am so glad that this is the path my life is headed in, for so many reasons, including the mission of the organization, the flexibility and the fun built into this job, my ability to continue working with the Baltimore non-profit I started consulting with during my master's program, and the ability to breathe a little, while it's still summer.

So I got a new computer, a new planner, and an oil change, and treated S to some Kentucky Fried Chicken as he was kind enough to be my discerning eye at the Best Buy.

Whenever I got discouraged with job hunting in recent weeks, I just told myself a series of sayings from successful thinkers I admire, such as that 'the harder you work, the more luck you'll have,' and 'you have to put action behind your faith.' I still have a ways to go, but I am so excited about getting set up in an adult role in life, in my home, at work, in everything, and I remain confident that I can do so just by doing little things each day to ensure that I am making progress a step at a time.

Speaking of, I have to set up my new planner with a bunch of meetings that are right now precariously hanging only in my memory. The Hermione Granger in me can't wait!

Baby steps

This morning as I was doing a little but of rushed work, sipping my peach tea, trying to have a good start to my week, I ended up reading this on CNN.com.Like the article says, the sad but true truth is that some parents don't do simple things that every parent can to help their children thrive. It made me happy to ready actually, since I had the joy of teaching some child development classes with a couple of really great moms in Baltimore who have genuinely turned their lives around for themselves and their infant daughters, and who I am sure will be such better parents for it. Change comes slow, since each individual is responsible for taking responsibility for him or herself in the end, but when the decision is made to make a change, and make it for good - wow - really incredible transformations occur. At least that's what I saw when I worked with these amazing women, and it is my hope that their children and their children's children are raised with all the promise and love possible.

Ollies

So terrible news. The kitty is sick, and sick no less with an infection in his most sensitive of areas! This is his second night at the 24-hour pet hospital, where at least he is in good hands and has been called the staff's "handsome boyfriend" already - of course! We are so proud of him, because he is being very brave and hasn't let his personality wane a bit - when we visited today not only did he nuzzle, but vigorously tried to shake off his paw IV and jump out at us - that's our boy! We miss him so much and have been trying to pretend he's at home, but after the move, which went really, really well by the way, there is unmistakably a piece of us missing here.
We are praying he comes home tomorrow night and at the very latest, the night after. Think nice, clean pee pee thoughts for him!

The little engineer's girlfriend that could

So I promised that I would make sure to tell all about my trip to North Carolina, and I haven't forgotten! It may just be too much for you to handle, since I have broken my weekend down minute-by-minute, play-by-play, as not leave any detail unturned. So enjoy...if you dare!

Friday June 10

4:50am – Alarm clock goes off, I ignore it.

5:06am – I look at my cell phone for the time and decide I need to wake up.

5:45am – I am off! (Kind of.) I leave the apartment to go get gas.

6:28am – I visit the row house apartment to grab a few things (make up bag, a skirt, some shoes) that I want for the trip but have already shipped over there.

6:45am – I am off – for real this time! I leave Baltimore and head south.

7:30am – I make it close to D.C. and start seeing tons of cops on the road, pulling people over for speeding.

9:05am – I make it to Richmond, try to take a rest stop, but can’t find the visitors center! I loop around two or three times and get make on the highway.

9:34am – I drive a ways from Richmond and give P a call. She is excited I am doing so well on time.

11:00amish – I am detoured due to an accident.

11:30amish – I stop because I have no more gas in the car, and for a Heath bar.

12:00pmish – I start out on I-85.

12:31pm – I speed on I-85 and get pulled over (First time ever!) I am in Oxford, North Carolina apparently.

12:47pm – I make it to Durham! I get lost in Durham. I head to Chapel Hill with new directions from P.

1:30pmish – I arrive! I sit. I eat a cookie and chat with P. Her apartment is super sweet!

2:00pmish – We go to lunch at “Med Deli,” a Mediterranean place. We each get the 3-item veggie sampler, and I get grilled veggies, curry cabbage, and baba ganoush (which I have never had before). It is extremely yummy, especially since there is a complementary olive and cheese bar and rosewood sweet tea at the soda fountain.

3:00pmish – We tour around Chapel Hill. I see where the riots were when UNC won the 2009 championships. We tar heel baby-item window shop for P’s expectant friend K. We see Davey Popular on campus, and get a locopop (mine was Mexican Chocolate, and very drippy, but very good).

4:00pmish – P drives me to see the beautiful house she is moving into in a few weeks (wrap-around porch, gorgeous trees in the front yard. We drive to Carrboro.

4:15pmish – We stop at the Weaver Street co-op for coffee and tea. We sit outside and watch puppies and talk about undergraduate drama. We see a doppelganger of a mutual college friend, and this makes our out-of-date gossip even funnier.

5:26pm – We head back to the UNC campus, to the Carolina Inn for Fridays on the Front porch, where they play blue grass music on the lawn of the Inn. I meet P’s graduate school friends. They make fun of P not having an iPhone, since she declined to be on their “Family Plan” with them.

7:00pmish – We decide to go eat dinner at an American-style restaurant with a bunch of P’s friends. P and I both get the taco salad, and one of her friends orders 2 deviled eggs. We end up talking about childhood movies like “Babe” and “The Last Unicorn.”

9:30pmish – We head back to P’s apartment, where I check out some of her awesome pictures from conference travels and holidays with friends in NC.

11:21pm – I change into jammies. I am super tired from the drive still and yawn frequently. We decide to watch an episode of “Coupling,” a British TV-series much like “Friends” here, and then we head off to bed.

Saturday June 11

8:03am – My alarm clock goes off. I ignore it.

8:28am – I look at my phone and decide I have to get up and see if P is ready to go to the Farmer’s Market.

8:30am – I get out of bed and greet P, who woke up at 8 to buy Thanksgiving week tickets online to see a show on Broadway with Hugh Jackman and that small-headed guy who plays the new James Bond.

9:04am – After some chitchat, I throw on some jeans (leaving my jammy T-shirt on) and head out to the Carrboro Famer’s Market with P. We see celosias and tons of other beautiful flowers that I fall in love with, and I end up grabbing a coffee and these delicious sungold tomatoes there for breakfast.

9:55am – We get back to P’s apartment and I quickly shower.

10:25am – I eat another one of the leftover cookies that P’s roommate made, and I pack up my things as P checks her mom’s flight into Raleigh.

10:44am – P’s mom’s flight finally departs from New Jersey, and we double check my directions to get to Washington.

10:58am – P and I take some pictures together, to prove that we saw each other this weekend, and I follow her out the to highway.

11:00am-1:00pm – I follow all the speed limits. It is so annoying. I give dirty looks to all the cars going by me at lightning speed and not getting ticketed. I also get harassed by a guy in a yellow jeep who keeps honking at me and staring at me. I break the speed limit just once to get away from him.

1:03pm – I drive through Greenville, and stop to get more gas and a large sweet tea/cheddar-bo biscuit from my favorite Southern fast-food chain, Bojangles.

1:26pm – After I really smooth drive to Washington, I pull into the Hampton Inn on W 15^th street and wonder where the rest of my family is. I clean out all of the food trash in my car, assemble a bag of essentials (sunscreen, bottled water, chapstick) to bring to the marina with me, and I leave voicemails for everyone I can think of who might know what is going on.

1:35pm – I go into the Hampton Inn to freshen up. I get a very complimentary coffee and two apples, and read the USA today in the lounge.

1:45pm – L calls me back and lets me know my uncle and her mom are on their way to the hotel. I feel like less of a stooge now.

2:00pm – I go back out to the car and see my uncle pulling into the parking lot. We go into the hotel and find L’s mom. All is good now.

2:35pm – My aunt and cousin arrive!

2:55pm – We all follow along to the marina.

3:14pm – We get to the marina, as do all of J’s fun family and friends. We get assigned a sailboat boat with an awesome guy who randomly used to teach at the same middle school my cousin went to. I later promise to facebook friend him and post pictures of him captaining his boat.

3:45pmish – We get out on the water. After actually getting on the boat, my aunt is fine and even helps with the lines. Our captain offers us soft drinks and tries to get us to eat all of his leftover black cherries, which are soon to go bad. I like spitting the pits into the river. We all take lots of pictures, and it is a really beautiful day.4:30pmish - J’s Ceremony! It’s really great - first the boats are all tied in together so no one floats away, then flowers and tequila shots are passed around. Apparently, J was saving a bottle of tequila to drink up whenever the day came that he hypothetically would get “6-months to live” prognosis from a doctor. Since that never happened, it was up to all of us to drink for him! We all drank our shots, then J was laid to rest in the water, along with a shot for himself, some tobacco, a few beers, and some sodas. The only thing missing was a good book for him to read down there. A few kind words were said about how J was a friend to all of us, then W, L’s boyfriend, paid his own tribute to J by breaking out some blue Speedo’s underneath his shorts and surprising us all! To wrap it up, we all sang Happy Birthday to J, who was born on July 11^th many years ago.

5:30pmish - We head back to shore to the “Tikki Hut” for snacks, but first the captain lets us all take turns steering the boat (scary!).

6:30pmish - I say my goodbyes and head back to the water one last time to wade around and remember J.

6:43pm - This is the exact time I started back for home. But first, back to Greenville for some Sonic!

7:30pmish - I find the Greenville Sonic, but my camera dies, so I can’t prove I made it there! I order some mozzarella sticks and a hazelnut java chiller. This is my first time in the driver’s seat at a Sonic, and it feels kind of sad to be sitting in a car lot ordering fast food just for me. Surprising.

7:45pmish - I head off! I have very few directions about how to get back up north, and I end up going on 13 and 17, then accidently just on 17, until I am headed in the dark to Elizabeth City, the east coast of North Carolina on the Ocean - oops!

9:15pmish - I stop at a Hess station and find a map. Whoo!

10:15pmish - After re-routing the opposite direction on 17, I finally find 13 again and head up North

10:20pmish - I call S and we make sure I am on the right track. I also pass a town called “Askewville,” and I worry a little.

10:37pm - I stop at a Bojangles for the last time. Even though I had “dinner” a little while ago, I get both French fries and another cheddar-bo biscuit. I miss those things theses days..

10:45pm - I get on 158, which takes me west, back to a spot where I can get onto Interstate 95.

11:30pmish - I stop at another gas station apparently near Jackson, North Carolina (a 3 block stretch of maybe 10 houses). The people at the gas station all tell me slightly different ways to get to the interstate. I say, “Thank y’all, I appreciate it!” and head on out to drive through Jackson. I feel proud of myself for saving “y’all” like I mean it!

11:40pmish - I get to a cross-road. One sign points to Weldon, and I go this way, since gas station patron #1 said to go towards “Welling.” I pray.

Sunday June 12

12:00am - I find signs that point to I-95!!! I stop for gas at a “Blue Flame” station

12:15pmish - I am in Virginia! I stop at a rest station and look at a map of me (at the very bottom of VA) and Baltimore (at the almost tippy top of MD) and contemplate how tired I will be for the next few hours.

12:43am - I call S. I tell him stories from the road, and about the back woodsy radio stations I have been listening to.

1:55am - I call S again to say goodnight. I am about an hour away from Richmond.

2:30amish - Other cars get pulled over around Richmond. I am happy I got pulled over when it was daylight outside at least - it would be so creepy in the middle of the night. My right knee is killing me from constantly accelerating and slowing down. So I start using my leg foot to drive. It is do or die time.

3:00amish - I get to Alexandria and DC! I am super excited, but there is all this construction everywhere and I am fairly convinced I will get lost again. Luckily I don’t. I start listening to infomercials on the radio for Purity Products, Inc. this nutritional supplement company claiming you need 5000 IUs of Vitamin D a day.

3:30amish - I get back on 695, home sweet highway!, and head to Baltimore.

3:43am - Still listening to infomercials, now for antioxidants, I arrive at home in Baltimore, and GO TO SLEEP!

Back from Carolina!

More to follow, but, here is a brief tribute to my uncle, who was scattered among his favorite waters this Saturday with plenty of beer to keep him happy.



I look forward to visiting you soon on Blunt's Bay!!

Packing (for) heat

So I have finally figured out my route to North Carolina this weekend! Though I have somehow managed to schedule another meeting this afternoon, thus prolonging my inability to get home, relax, and pick up some last minute road trip supplies, I am still really excited to gear up for making a long trip to the south all by myself and seeing some really great people and places along the way. Since I’d rather write about my time there after I get back, I thought I could share the anticipation with you a little to figuring out my alternative packing list with you. By alternative, I mean the stuff beyond the basic toiletries, and why I must have them on my trip!

First is sugar-free red bull, an energy drink which many people dislike because of it’s diety taste and because they are anti-energy drink in general. To them I say this – have you considered, likely coffee-drinker that you are, that a 300 calorie Starbucks drink has 225mg of caffeine per cup, and comparatively less vitamin content, albeit synthetic, than a 10-calorie red bull? (Not to mention that there are less likely to be lots of pit-stops along the drive down with this smaller-sized drink). Also, as a friend and fellow coffee addict myself, I hardly ever drink alternative forms of caffeine, and there is something that says “road trip” about waking up before the sun and guzzling down something in a skinny metallic can before I venture forward. Secondly, are some new summer dresses from Target (1-2). With the move, I have really not spent anytime shopping for clothes this summer (Furniture is expensive comparatively!), and I think it is important given the hot weather and the lack of air conditioning in the car and on the boat once I get down there to have clothing items looking okay, appropriate, and free of pit stains. I am thinking of getting a maxi dress or two, as these seem comfy and are really in style right now, thus they will be mass-marketed by the discount store in which I can afford to shop.

Thirdly, in addition to the sunscreen and sunglasses I’ll need to pack to stay unburnt, I am definitely going to drop by the drug store and see if they have Oxy pads. For those of you that were not teenagers in the 1990s, Oxy Pads are these great little pre-moistened facial cleansing clothes that dry up acne and remove dirt and oil from your face via a really harsh chemical astringent. I love these things and have been complaining to S since it got warm that I need them to freshen up quickly after work or on a weekend when I get all “dewy” after moving stuff. I can imagine myself sweating buckets while on the road, beads dripping off my forehead, being completely depraved before I arrive at my destination, then breaking out an Oxy pad from my bag and looking (and feeling!) fresh as new before I greet family and friends.

Well, I am a lady who will have it all together this weekend, and I look forward to telling you how I fended soon. Happy (almost) weekend!

Youth in the library

So I am in at library of my undergraduate institution for the evening, finishing up some research evaluation work and hanging out while S is...hold on...yes, it is confirmed, playing an online RPG a few kiosks over, and wow, people here are young! I mean, the library at my college is a pretty intimidating place, since we are known as a fairly cutthroat class of coeds, and where else would I be in good company during July with a ton of pre-meds studying for MCATs, and ton of others studying for LSATs, GREs, XYZs, and then a ton of people re-taking Orgo (poor fools!)? But how can I be intimidated by the great minds of my peers when they are no longer peers, but wee thoughtlings? It is sweet, I guess, but another part of me is feeling a bit wrinkly.

Another sign of my age - I facebook friended my boss yesterday.

Props and prospectives

So it's been a fun week leading up until Independence Day, but I didn't want to forget about my promise to try and promote random blogs I like, so hear goes..

When I am at work and I begin to freak out about paying rent and student loans and 7-eleven slurpee tabs, I force myself into a relative calm by seeking online financial advice, figuring that by reading an article or so on Kiplinger.com in between editing a report or pulling together a meeting might keep me on this side of the insanity cliff and even teach me a thing or two about economics (read: tell me where to get free stuff).

During one of my "moments," I stumbled upon this blog:

http://millionairemommynextdoor.com/

I was so impressed by the author's independence, her good-heartedness, and her absolute determination to, well, determine her own life . Despite her trying to actually teach me something about money, I fell in love. Like Suze Orman says, it is a blessing to have money to worry about, so even when I complain, I should never consider taking financial responsibility for myself to be a burden. The blogger, in addition to having an adorable little daughter (more brownie points for her), brings up some great points, and even though I might not want to achieve financial success using every life opportunity she has, I certainly admire her and want to use the skills she has honed and the voluntary simplicity she upholds to fulfill dreams of my own that are bigger than any paycheck.


On the lighter side, I have also really come to enjoy this blog, by a friend of a friend of friend's:

http://iloveyoumorethancarrots.blogspot.com/

I really relate to this lovely woman's joy of coffee, her young urban environment, and her ability to live a sweet life filled with quirky little pleasures. Once I get more situated, I would like think my day-to-day will be as down-to-earth and as fun as hers.

So, 'tis all for now. Except that I think my surprise phone interview with surprise job #5 went pretty well today, and that in honor my new sense of time (having more of it), I am going to go to the beach tomorrow...after I get ice cream with S tonight!

P.S. - Speaking of Suze Orman (I can't help myself), have you seen her financial protection gear?! The box is waterproof, can hold twice your body weight on top of it, and has a flashing light attached internally so you can locate it during a tsunami. What's not to like?