Ice, ice baby...

Just a few lovely photos from my Christmas break in good old Fort Fun. The day before I got home we had a major ice storm, if you can't tell. Much of the city was without power for several days. We didn't have power for about 18 hours. Of course, the moment I walk in the door that night from the airport, the power came back on. I am the miracle child, afterall. :)


Christmas was good. It was nice to spend time with the family and just be lazy. Santa was good to me. I got all I could ever want, including two ski masks for my winter biking, lots of chocolate, and more underarmor. Now I'm back in lovely Minnesnowta with not much to do for the next couple days. As it turns out, I have to work much less this week than I thought I did, which corresponds to nice lazy time, but upsets me slightly because I could have easily stayed in Indiana for another week. Oh well, life goes on.


December flew by in a whirl. Lots going on between my program obligations (which were excessively many those three weeks) and stuff going on at work for our big toy distribution and wrapping up the fall session of the after-school program. Plus there was a week in there where I got to play church secretary while the real secretary was on I'm-a-new-grandma leave. So now I know how to design a church bulletin. Things are going well at work though. I've decided that my favorite task is working with the kids. Maybe if I ever lose interest in public health I'll become a teacher.


Speaking of public health, my grad school app has been submitted, and according to the application service update, has been officially sent to the University of Minnesota. My fingers are crossed. Please cross yours too! :)


One of my housemates works at an inner-city non-profit puppet and mask theater, and their biggest show every years is called La Natividad. Of course, she enlisted our help in volunteering for one of the shows, and in exchange we got to come back and see the show a different night. The show is bilingual, and what is most interesting about it is that it is a traveling story with about five different stops around the neighborhood, telling the Christmas Story as a story of immigration. We followed Maria and Jose around the barrio, and one of the stops after being refused shelter at a house on 15th Ave is the 29th Street bridge over the greenway. There we reencoutered Herrod as the gatekeeper with soldiers on stilts blocking the entire span of the bridge. "You cannot enter here." Of course, the people from the church that is farther down the street come down and "melt" the soldiers with sayings about how we are all one family. Then everyone passes and takes a candle to walk down the rest of the street to St. Paul's Lutheran church for the last scene of the play and the party afterwards. As we were walking my the fallen Herrod, he kept repeating his favorite line: "Nadie pasa sin dinero." No one gets through without money. That kind of stuck with me, because it's sad and true. Also sad is that this was the last year for La Natividad as the theater faces an uncertain financial future. Stupid economy.


In happier news I have furthered my adventures into old womanhood and have learned how to crochet. Scarves at least. One successful project down, and I've got a good start on my second! It's a good activity for this seemingly never-ending below-freezing winter weather.


I miss you all and am sending my love from Minnesota. You really should write to me or on here. It makes me sad that I haven't heard from anyone in quite a long time.


Feliz año nuevo! And Happy World Peace Day as well!

I love Fall colors!

I've certainly felt blessed here in Minneapolis with some gorgeous fall days lately, especially on the weekends. Rumor has it that the views of the trees along the Mississippi are breathtaking, although I haven't had time yet to see if for myself besides from the highway bridges.

Highlights from the past week:

Saturday - Niños, Guitarras y Cantos de Jesús

I spend a fair amount of time working with the Youth Director at Holy Rosary, Miguel, although we mainly work together on the After-School Enrichment Program. He also is in charge of a singing and guitar group of kids, many of which are also in the after-school program.

Last Saturday I was going to meet Miguel in the Ace Hardware parking lot where the kids were supposed to be performing for the lunch gathering for the Phillips Neighborhood Cleansweep Day (kind of like a Community Action Day, but focusing on cleaning up the neighborhood). I went there with the intention of saying hello, picking up my camera that Miguel had forgotten to give back to me on Thursday, and leaving. Well, as it turns out, Miguel must have thought differently when I had responded that yes, I would be there. And as it turns out, the location of the gathering wasn't in the parking lot but at a nearby park. After figuring out where we were supposed to be, I ended up staying and directing the parents to the correct location as they came trickling in. I told Miguel that I couldn't go to the park with them, until he looked at me and said, "You're not? Then who's going to introduce the group?" (He's not very confident in his English.) Thus I got roped into going to the park.

We got the kids set up with the one microphone they had, and they started singing their songs, which were in all Spanish, and were all religious songs. I am sure that the only people in the audience who could understand them were their parents. But they were sure darn cute. I held the microphone for the girls who were singing so that they could do some hand-motions and claps, and I remember being there, squatting with the microphone, thinking that life can't really get much better than this, and being quite thankful that I had ended up there despite my hurry. It's really a beautiful community that I live in, as I watched the audience smiling, clapping, and taking pictures, including the bigger, African-American man in charge of the food dancing to the music and saying, "Sing it to me now!" It was great. I love working with the kids. Below is a picture of some of my niños:

Tuesday - General Mills World Headquarters

Last Tuesday I found myself at General Mills World Headquarters with Miguel for their annual Report to the Community. We only went because last year we had received a $10000 Communities of Color grant from them to start the After-School Program. It seemed like an obligation.

Well, General Mills World Headquarters is kind of like it's own little city within Minneapolis. When you enter the building, you have to go through the security detail, and afterwards you find yourself walking down hallways with stores, eating places, a coffee shop, a hairdresser, and even a daycare. Pretty much anything you can imagine. We were sent up an escalator to the second floor, where we joined the rich and famous for light refreshments as we were serenaded with background music by two young people on a violin and cello. I felt underdressed in my khaki's and nice sweater, and Miguel was certainly underdressed in jeans. I think he was the only Latino there. I definitely felt out of place. So anyway we were soon ushered into a movie-theater like presentation room where we were greeted by the company CEO and listened to other General Mills employees clapping themselves on the back for giving away a bunch of money ($87 million last year) and for their employees, 80 percent of whom apparently volunteer in their communities.

As they were congratulating themselves (there were many other leaders from other local non-profit organizations that had received some money from them, but they were much bigger than little Holy Rosary), I could help but wonder whether these people really had any idea about the reality of the daily lives of the people I work with, about their struggles. Probably not. It's an interesting system though, that we who are working at the grass-roots level trying to create a more just worled have to play by the corporate rules in order to get anything funded. It's something that I continue to contemplate, trying to convince myself to find some sort of middle ground that is a little less cynical.

After the presentation Miguel and I enjoyed some nice Chinese food that they had provided and had quite a good conversation about the healthcare system.

Although I do give General Mills props because the General Mills Community Foundation part of the company is run by a seven member team, and I did note that all of them were women.

Friday - The University of Minnesota's School of Public Health

I was able to fit all my hours into four days earlier this past week so that I didn't have to work on Friday. Instead I got to get up and hop the bus to the U for a Preview Day at the School of Public Health. It was awesome, and got me really excited about next year and the possibilities for me. I felt like I would fit in well there, and I was able to get all of my questions answered. Plus they've got some pretty fancy-smancy buildings in their Health Area. Plus I had a really good conversation with another prospective student who like me is just a few years out of undergrad and working at a non-profit. It was just one of those random conversations with a stranger that just makes your day. Then afterward I stuck around and met a former girl from my program who is currently in the SPH at the U for what we in my program call a "one to one." We had a great conversation, and I got to here what it was like to be a student in the SPH, which just made me even more excited. Overall, it was an awesome experience.

Now I just have to get myself motivated to work on my application...

Okay, tis all for now. I miss you all lots.

Stales and Kate, you are slackers and need to post on here. :) I want to hear about what's going on in your lives!

Peace, love, and Wagon Wheel,

Alicia :)

Pseudo-Fall Break

So look who's finally checking back in! Somehow, I haven't posted from Minneapolis, although I think I've talked to all of you at least briefly in the meantime. So I'll go ahead and do a sort-of overview, not in chronological order at all.

Life in the City of Lakes

First of all, I really like it here in Minneapolis. I live in the neighborhood of Loring Park, which is just southwest of downtown, and centered around a really nice park that gives the neighborhood its name. In fact, I've decided that there really couldn't be a better park for its size. It's got a small lake, nice landscaping, big grassy areas, big trees, tons of squirrels and ducks, probably the best basketball courts ever... the list goes on. Plus, there's always all kinds of different people there. There's the young professional types, which is mostly the type that live in the neighborhood. But then there's also homeless people hanging out, college students reading books, old European immigrants speaking some unknown language and holding up traffic as they take forever to cross the street to the park, black kids playing basketball, weird people feeding the squirrels... just about every type of person you can imagine.

Another interesting thing about my neighborhood people-wise is the large Somali population. My neighborhood isn't the main center for the Somali community here, but the corner a couple blocks down is a major gathering spot. The food market there where I shop is owned by a Somalian family, and there's a cafe across the street that caters to the community. I've never been around a large immigrant community from a country other than Mexico, and I'm really interested to learn more about their culture. For example, I learned this that the community is not all recent immigrants, and there are many people in the community who are our age and were born in and grew up in the Twin Cities. Anyway, I don't really know much about the culture or their community here, but it's something I hope to learn more about.

My day-to-day life here is going well. I go to the U (which is how the locals always refer to the University of Minnesota) every day either to take classes or teach classes, or both. Unless it's raining, I ride my bike, which is about 4 miles each way. It's not too bad of a ride, even though I go through downtown, thanks to the good system of bike lanes.

Physics is Phun, but Grad School is Hard

Classes are pretty good. I'm taking three classes that I took at Xavier, but at a graduate level. It might sound weird, but the part that I enjoy the most is doing the homework. Going to class is going to class, pretty much the same as undergrad, but it's fun to have time to really work on the challenging homework problems that really make me think. Of course, that's when my time isn't taken up by teaching and grading. The actual time spent in the classroom and the lab isn't too bad; at least it keeps me engaged the whole time. The grading sucks, though. I grade formal lab reports and quiz questions. That's 32 lab reports at a time, and when I grade quizzes, that's about 200 versions of the same problem. I definitely have a new appreciation for teachers that have to do that all the time. It's hard to be consistent over that many papers, and it's frustrating since the students all seem to suck. Although that apparently has a lot to do with the professor, but that's a different story.

I'm on a pseudo-Fall Break right now, which is really nice. What's a pseudo-Fall Break, you ask? Well, I normally have homework due on Fridays for two of my classes, but no homework this week because we had a test in both classes in the past week. So I'm enjoying a couple of days where I don't have much work to do (although I still have to go to class and teach my classes).

The first tests were pretty tough. The first one was a baptism by fire. It's a pretty tough class to begin with, plus the professor is known for his hard tests. It was one of those tests that's hard, plus the time constraint means you don't have much time to think or check your work. And my results reflected that. The grade that I got was substantially lower than I would like it to be. The second test went better, but I haven't gotten that grade back yet, so fingers crossed on that one.

I'm kinda starting to make new friends, but that's going more slowly than it did in undergrad, which is to be expected. I've started to make some "homework buddies," and I chat with people in between classes, but haven't really spent much social time with any of them outside of the couple of department-organized parties so far. But I think that's coming along, however slowly. It's a good thing that I've got Alicia here. I've also spent some time with the girls in her program, and they're nice, so that's at least been some social interaction. :)

Okay, even though I am on my pseudo-break, I do have a full day of stuff tomorrow, so I better get to bed. I miss you all! I hope to hear from you soon. And I promise to not go so long between blog posts any more.

--Sean

Oh, and I must mention that my iTunes was on shuffle while I wrote this, and Wagon Wheel just happened to come on. :)

Oh you know, juvenile arson

I figured I would share with you all a quite interesting and yet sad tale about neighborhood children.

I live in a house project called Hope Community, which comprises one square block of South Minneapolis. As it is an organization that tries to build community, the space behind my house is community space. Well, there are some children that live in a unit that is directly behind my house. And by some children, I mean like 15, all between the ages of 2 and 12, with the majority of them around age 8 or so. These children run around that space behind the house and around our house all the time, completely unsupervised. It has been determined by my housemates and I that their parents are pretty much non-existent. I don't think these children have ever received any type of punishment for bad behavior in their entire lives. So, we're dealing with children who pretty much have zero moral compass here.

Well, they've taken to harassing us. It is unclear exactly how that situation evolved from our first interaction with them. The second interaction involved them harassing one of my housemates as she tried to back out of the driveway. They threw mulch under the tires, threw the recycling bins in her path, jumped on the car, tried to hold back one of my other housemates who was trying to help Maggie go. Okay, so, we inform Hope of what is going on. No real response. We discuss tactics with our program staff member to try and build more positive interaction with them.

The next day, it is discovered that one of the windows of our community car was shattered. Lovely. We swear it was the kids, although we have no proof of it. They claim they saw other kids do it who "don't live here." Right. We get the window fixed and quit parking our cars at the top of the driveway.

Two days later: there is a detached garage behind our house that belongs to Hope and is used as storage for property management stuff. We discover that someone has beaten in, kicked in part of the door so that it now opens. No proof who.

Yesterday, one of my housemate's boyfriend notices smoke coming out of the garage around 5:30. He calls the fire department. There are three huge firetrucks in front of my house blocking two of the three lanes of traffic (it's a one-way). Lots of firemen. They put it out rather quickly. It was a "contents fire" aparently originating from an artificial Christmas tree. They call the arson investigator in. No proof, but we swear it was the kids. Many of the other kids were whispering that it was the little girl (probably like 9 or 10 years old) whom we have labeled as "Sassy Pants" because she instigates a lot of the trouble. So yeah. I hope that Hope kicks those people out. Those kids need some serious help. We here at the house have debated calling child protection, because kids shouldn't be running around and doing those things; it's a danger to their safety and to our safety.

The whole situation just makes me sad, and angry. I get angry at the kids, which makes me angry that I am angry at them when I should be angry at their parents. Then I get angry because I really should be angry at society in general that has created such a situation. It's sad.

On a happier note, I took this picture tonight while my housemates and I were having a picnic in the park for our community night:

I love and miss you all. Let me know what's going on in your lives!

Is it September already?

My dearest A-Team,

Okay, so finally an update from me. I sit here writing this to you from a coffee shop across from Loring Park. It's quite a lovely day outside, even if it did rain while Sean and I were walking to church. The crisp, cool fall air has already arrived here, or at least what I consider to be the crisp fall air, at least in the mornings. You know, highs in the 60s. It's been that way for a week now, although I hear that it's slightly out of ordinary and should get back into the 70s this coming week. It should be absolutely beautiful when the leaves start to turn, so I will definitely post pictures of that.

I love it here. You should come visit me if you can, although unless you really love winter you might not want to come during the 9 months of winter. I think what I like most about it is that it's definitely a big city feel, but also a neighborhood feel, and not to mention that this is the most progressive place that I have lived in so far, although more on an individual level than a government level. The "Minnesota nice" adds to the friendly feel. People ride bikes here as a form of transportation and not just recreation, there are lots of bike lanes and trails, several farmers' markets, lots of co-ops with local and/or organic foods, parks everywhere (it's a city ordinance that there has to be a park for so many city blocks), a nice bus system, coffee shops that practice sustainability. Ah, I'm in love.

Of course, the city does have its downsides. I live in probably the poorest neighborhood in Minnesota (or at least it was at one point in the not-so-distant past), the Phillips neighborhood, about 20 blocks south of downtown. (Everything is mostly in a grid here, like Indianapolis, with numbered avenues going N-S and numbered streets going E-W). The neighborhood isn't the prettiest, but what it lacks in outward beauty it makes up for in spirit. I like in a gigantic red house that formally served as a Catholic Worker House with six other women in my program. The other six live in a house in St. Paul. The house I live in is part of Hope Community, which is an organization that is working to revitalize the neighborhood and make it safer through providing community space and activities. It has done wonders over the years to clean up the block, but there's still a lot of work to be done. I'm getting better at picking out the loitering drug dealers on the corner, seeing the prostitutes on 30th and 31st streets, seeing police cars with flashing lights on my block four nights in a row, etc. There was one morning on my way to work where just down the street from my house there was a cop car with about ten people face down or on their knees on the sidewalk with their hands behind their backs. Not sure what was going on there, but I wasn't about to stick around to find out. Anyway, I'm playing it safe though, don't worry. I don't go out by myself at night, and I am sharpening my street-smart skills that I started learning in good old Evanston and Norwood. I do like my neighborhood. For some reason there is a soft-spot in my heart for the inner city. I could never live in the suburbs.

My work at the church is going fairly well. Much of my neighborhood is inhabited by Latinos and Somalis, although being Catholic the church where I work serves mostly Latinos, except for the ESL classes which are half-Somali. I was a bit frustrated at the beginning with my job, but it has continued to improve, and I am almost at the point of being satisfied with it, so I'm optimistic. My current roles involve helping out with the after-school program tutoring and planning activities and such, helping with the health education classes (which haven't started up yet, so far I'm just designing flyers), fixing computers (I've gained a reputation already as a computer expert...cause I'm young and grew up on them), some data entry, and being a pseudo-social worker. Last week I spent two days following a Hennepin County social worker around while she was doing an orientation for her MSW two interns from the University of Minnesota. She was super-friendly, and I learned quite a bit from her, not all of it useful in my work, but I did gain more of a feel for the neighborhood and for how the county system works in general. We took a visit to the county building downtown and got to see the commissioner's office, boardroom, some of the courts, and were various other department buildings were. It's been a good intro to social work, if anything, although since most of the people that I will work with are undocumented, most if not all of the county social services are unavailble to them.

I've been getting to know one family particularly well, or at least starting to build a relationship with them. It's a mother, Monica, who is in her mid-30s with five children, all of them are citizens. Her husband was being hunted down by ICE, which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security that is incredibly well-funded by tax dollars with the sole job of hunting down people who have overstayed their visas and doing immigration raids and deporting people (okay, I shouldn't get myself started). But anyway, from my understanding her husband was being hunted I think because the house they are renting is on a block where lots of drug dealers live, and I think the former occupier of the house was big into the drug industry. And of course, Monica's husband must look like this guy because for a white person all Latinos look the same. So he left to go back to Mexico partly because of that and partly because his mother was dying. She is expecting him to return any day now. I hope he gets across safely. Anyway, he had a nice stable job and did very good/hard work, but since he is gone all Monica has is the $700 dollars a month that she applied for welfare for her children. She's trying to find a new place to live because her husband does not want to come back to the same apartment, understandably. So a few weeks ago I tried to help her find some low-income housing, but pretty much got nowhere because all of the agencies and subsidized low-incoming housing available is not for undocumented people. The Somalis are quite lucky because they have refugee status, so they can get all these services. Most Latinos, economic refugees in my opinion, are out of luck. So yeah, she ended up finding a place on her own, a one bedroom place, where the seven of them will live. Sad. But that's one story among many here. The immigration system is in major need of reform. There needs to be a path to citizenship for these people who have lived here for years, working hard, paying taxes, trying to raise their families, but at the same time being exploited in the workplace and living in constant fear. As I start learning more stories, I am going to try and start a collection of them. What I will actually do with them is yet to be determined.

Anyway, so I bike to work about a mile and half everyday, which is awesome. A lot of my free time is spent hanging out with Sean, particuarly on the weekends, and exploring Minneapolis, usually on bike. We've been to the Minnehaha Falls, the three lakes in the western part of the city, Loring Park where he lives, the University, the Mall of America, etc. Last week with the good old RNC in town we went to a peace rally/war protest on Labor Day at the state capitol in St. Paul. That was fun. We marched from the Capitol to the Excel Energy Center where the convention was being held, and back. It was quite tiring, especially since we had to walk back to the St. Paul house where the other girls lived, because the buses weren't really working to take us back. Later I heard it was because the anarchy group was raising hell in downtown St. Paul, which really pissed me off because they got all the press and gave the peaceful protesters a bad rap, even though they had nothing to do with us at all. Grrr... Anyway, I am quite glad that the conventioners and the anarchists are gone and life is back to normal. For a week the cities were like a police state. Lots of traffic, cops everywhere, lots of riot gear, and surveillance helicopters flying around 24/7 and keeping me from sleeping. Like an eerie scene out of 1984. It's a sad world we live in. Anyway, so that was the excitement of the past week.

Well, that's most of the highlights thusfar, not including my two week orientation at the beginning, which was such a whirlwind of detail that I really don't remember much of it. I miss you all so much!

Hope all is well!

Lots of love,

Alicia :)

Last Post Before the Move!

Well, the truck is packed, and my room is dark and empty except for the mattress I'm sleeping on tonight, which will be thrown in the truck just before we leave at 8:00 tomorrow morning (technically today, but who's counting?). I'm a little sad to be leaving home -- walking my dogs today before my sister took them to the kennel was a little emotional. This move is a little farther and substantially more permanent than going to Xavier. But my dominant feelings right now are ones of excitement to be starting a new adventure.

Next time I post, it will be from the Mill City in the Land of Lakes! :D

Love you all!

Really Long Post about Loosely Connected Things

My excuse for not posting is that I'm boring. I guess I have to allow a fairly long time to pass in order to collect enough noteworthy things to post about. I expect that to change soon, though.

Fourth of July in Fort Wayne
As the section heading suggests, I spent the weekend of Independence Day with Alicia and her family. I got up there on Thursday (the 3rd, wow, this seems so long ago...), and on Friday, we went with her family to her uncle's lake house on one of Northern Indiana's many nice lakes. This is a tradition for her family and some of their cousins' families to spend the Fourth at the lake house. And it is also the site of the Earnest-Lenehan family Olympics.

Now, the Earnest-Lenehan Olympics are a big deal, at least to Alicia's dad, especially now that the prize is a squirrel. I'm sure you all remember her dad and the squirrels, and Sammy, the ceramic squirrel that sits on the dashboard to see his relatives. Well, Sammy has a girlfriend now, Susie, who had been won by the Lenehans last year. So if the Earnests lost again, I believe that Sammy would have been lost. Tragic.

Anyway, the Olympics consist of five events between the families, and each event is best-of-three. The events vary, but basketball is always one of them. The Earnests have lost basketball for five straight years, so of course, Alicia's dad has been working on recruiting me for this game for almost a year. Of course, I have to help protect the Earnest family honor, so I had my game face on. I wasn't about to lose Sammy.

The games were hard fought, but they really had no answer for my size, and with a lot of scoring help from Alicia's brother, we won the best-of-three contest in two games. So the Earnests (with a little help) finally broke the basketball losing streak! Melinda won the running race for the Earnests before the Lenehans won chess and bocce. Alicia and Kaylin won the clinching Euchre game, though, so Sammy was saved!

In between the Olympic events, we rode in the boat on the lake, went tubing, and rode the jet ski. I'm sure our ride on the jet ski provided a pretty funny image: me holding onto Alicia for dear life as she guns the jet ski up to 50+ mph. All the while, I'm thinking that there's no way that Alicia's big enough to keep me out of the water if I start to fall, but we made it without me falling off.

Afterwards, we headed back to Fort Wayne for the fireworks. Let me provide you with some insight about how the Earnest family works: Alicia's dad is driving, and her mom is telling him which way to go. He goes a different way, while Kaylin and Melinda discuss where they watched the fireworks last year, and where they should go this year. For whatever reason, they both have strong opinions on this, and are helpfully yelling their suggestions from the back of the van. Meanwhile, Alicia is trying to guide the discussion so that we end up close to where her friends are sitting. And her dad drives his own way.

Alicia turns to me and says, "Welcome to 'the Earnest family goes to the fireworks.'" And I say, "Welcome to 'the Earnest family goes anywhere.'" Apparently, it's an unwritten rule that whoever sits in the passenger seat has to offer a route to wherever they're going, and the driver has to go a different way. It's pretty funny to sit back and watch it all unfold, and not worry how we're gonna get there.

The rest of the weekend was fun, pretty chill. We had a picnic in the park, got ice cream, and watched movies.

(Wow, when I sit down to write these, they end up being really long.)

Alicia comes to the Nap
Don't know if I've said this before, but "Naptown" and "the Nap" are nicknames for Indianapolis. It used to be derrogatory, saying the city was boring, but now it is embraced at least by people I know. If you hear someone call it "Indy," they're probably from out of town. Anyway...

The next weekend, Alicia was able to come down to visit me in Naptown. It was nice to see her for the third weekend in a row, especially since I hadn't seen her for most of June. Our weekend here was less eventful, but still fun. On Saturday, we went downtown with my sister. We ate lunch at an Indian buffet (always delicious), and then walked to Monument Circle:

(Note Alicia's tiptoes.) Now, the Monument is an Indianapolis landmark, right in the middle of downtown, and gives us one of our nicknames, the Circle City. If you pay a dollar, you can go up in the top and look out the observation deck. Despite living here our whole lives, Haley and I have never been up there, and of course Alicia hasn't either, so today was the day. And boy were we excited!

After a pleasant elevator ride with a man with claustrophobia and altophobia and his annoying wife, we climbed the 43 remaining stairs to the observation deck, which was like a sauna. The view of downtown was nice, and Alicia was particularly excited to get a good view of the new Colts stadium, but damn, it was HOT. We made our way back down and cooled off with some ice cream.

Lest you think I have no life outside Alicia ;)

Alicia told you about my cousin's wedding in her last post. Speaking of which, I don't particularly remember being tipsy on that phone call, but I guess I probably was. I didn't have all that much to drink, but I'm sure dancing has a similar effect on me. Oh, and L.Dot, I can commiserate with you about how everybody attacks you with "Don't Stop Believin," because now everybody attacks me with "Livin on a Prayer," which I hate with almost as strong a passion as you hate the Journey song. And I must report that my 8-year-old cousin Dylan's second-favorite song is Soulja Boy. Don't know if he can do the dance though.

Okay, after that rambling paragraph, time to get back on topic. After the wedding, many of the O'Connor clan made the trek from Chicago to Michigan's West Coast, per family tradition. For many years, some of my extended family has rented a house near the beach in the area of St. Joseph, Michigan, and the rest of the family is welcome to come up and enjoy the beach and whatever else for part or all of that week. So Haley and I went with one of our aunts and stayed for a few nights.

It was fun, and also a little bit crazy with the number of people there, including one clan of my cousins that consists of five little kids that enjoy yelling and beating each other up. We went to the pool with them one night, and everybody went to the beach on the next two days. The beach was fun, although it was nerve-wracking at times trying to keep track of the little kids as they jump around in the waves of Lake Michigan. The waves were especially big on the first day, and somehow I ended up being the only adult in the water with the four kids (10, 8, and 5-year-old twins) right when we got there. As I tried to keep them together and above water, someone decided to help me out by throwing a football in my eye. I was too distracted to even flinch, so it got me pretty good. Didn't lose any kids, though, which is the good thing. I also introduced the twins to the concept that, on the beach, trash=toys, something that I am quite proud of.

Minnesota, here I come!

As of right now, my moving day is about four days away, which is scary and exciting at the same time, as I'm sure you all can understand. I've started packing what I can. We're loading up the truck on Friday and making the 10-hour drive on Saturday. My parents and sister are going to stay to help me get moved in and settled, and then stay an extra day to hang out. I start orientation on the 18th, and class/work on September 2nd. I will definitely keep you posted on how that goes.

In other news, I got a new cell phone, complete with a new number in the Minneapolis area code: 612-751-1979. It's much better than my old phone, in that I can actually afford to talk to people on it for more than 3 minutes at a time! This is good, because I have resolved to keep in better contact with friends via phone (especially you guys). So I will be calling you guys soon. And please call me. I'm awkward on the phone (I still leave Alicia awkward voice mails. In fact, I think I left her an awkward one tonight) but I'm not going to let that stop me . :) So that's about it about the phone. Free nights and weekends, free verizon in-network, woot!

Oh, and to let you know: Alicia moved to Minneapolis on Sunday, and her orientation with her program seems to be going well so far.

Shout outs appear to be in style these days:
L.Dot: already shouted you out above, but your job sounds cool. Tell Katie and Scott that I said hi, and that I will be sending them emails like I've been intending to do for the longest time. (I feel like if I say that more publicly, it'll help me remember to actually do it, lol. Now I better get on that.)

Kate: That IM convo we were having got cut off, but I hope the rest of your Ghana trip is good, and hope to hear more later.

Mike: How's life as a bank teller? And how's it living with your brother's family in the house still? Oh, and thanks for Griffey. Hopefully he can get to the World Series with my White Sox. :)

Alicia: See you in Minnesota!

"Hey Chicago whadda ya say? The Cubs are going to win today!"

Well, except they didn't win, but that's okay. The game went to 12 innings, so the excitement was still high. Yes, our seats were super-crappy, but they did give me a good view of the entire field.

It's been awhile since I posted. Life all of a sudden got extra busy during the month of July, and it still hasn't stopped. Where did the time go? I move to Minneapolis this Sunday. Am I ready? Literally no, mentally yes. I'm ready for my next big adventure.

Anyway, so yeah, this past weekend I was in Chicago for a couple of exciting events. After work on Thursday I drove myself to Indianapolis to Sean's house, and on Saturday his fam and I headed up to Chicago for his cousin's wedding. It really was a nice wedding. The church was really big and old (yet because of that it was not air conditioned, oh dear) and beautiful. There was a trolley that was driving all the guests between the hotel, church, and the reception, which were all within a few blocks around the UofI-Chicago area just west of downtown. The reception was at the Italian-American Hall of Fame building (Mikey, I didn't see any pictures of you in there ;) ). Before dinner there was a cocktail hour on the roof of the building, which when I first stepped out the door my jaw dropped. That's because I had a perfect, competely unobstructed view of the Chicago skyline on a beautiful summer's day. Alas, I had no camera because my mother and sister had taken it with them to England (they were there for 10 days on a soccer trip), so I don't have any pictures of it, which is highly disappointing. I kicked myself the next day when I other sister reminded me, "Alicia, you have a camera on your cell phone." Oops. But the cocktails were lovely, the wine Sean's uncle and cousin had picked out was superb. The dinner was just as good and fancy. I felt so high-class. I love those kind of dinners. Then there was dancing, which was fun because the band was quite talented, especially for their rockin' band name: Out of Control. To top off their awesomeness, they played Staley's favorite song, which prompted our tipsy-dial to her. :)

That all went down on Friday, and on Saturday my dad, sister, brother, grandmother, and aunts and uncles from my father's side of the family came to Chicago for the rest of the weekend. Now, I must explain that this is the side of my family that is rather dysfunctional . They maybe get together once every 30 years, and maybe speak to each other once a year, if they are on speaking terms. Lol, anyway, my father had organized this little reunion for my grandmother, who is getting near kick-the-bucket age, and she is probably the most fervent Cubs fan outside of Chicago. She watches every game on TV. It had been 20 years since she had been to Wrigley, so that's why all the fam flew into Chicago. Of course, my dad waited till the last minute to plan this thing and get tickets, so the way overpriced seats were really crappy. But my grandmother loved it, and I enjoyed the game too. I had only ever been to one other game there before, and it was many years ago to the point that I only have vague memories of it. We had dinner that night downtown at Harry Caray's after the game. Yummy! And probably the best service I've ever experienced. The next morning we all hit up the Museum of Science and Industry before parting ways. That is one cool museum, and a very large one. I didn't get to see much of it because we only had a little amount of time, but one day I shall return to that museum and indulge my nerdiness for a whole day.

Let's see...ah yes, bridal shower weekend was the weekend before that. Let me tell you ladies, if you ever have questions about throwing a bridal shower, call me, cause I am now an officially experienced amateur. But let me warn you that it involves a lot more running around than you'd think, and more $$$ than you think. The weekend went really well though. Saturday was Elyssa's shower, and it was a good thing she had invited all of our mothers to that shower, because besides her grandmother and her friend Lucy, it was just the planners and our mothers. So a small shower, but nice. I think Elyssa really liked it, and the moms I were pleasantly surprised that yes, their daughters can throw a decent party. (Or at least that's what Courtney's mother actually told her later!) Sunday brought Monica's shower, which had a lot more people, some of which we didn't know. Monica loved it though, and I think her mom did too. I believe it was Monica's only bridal shower (Elyssa had already had at least one other one), and her mom kept thanking us for doing it over and over. So mission accomplished! Plus it was good bonding time.

I promised Sean that I wouldn't steal all of his fire, so I'll leave him to talk about the previous two weekends, one spent in the Fort and the other in Naptown. :)

Work sucks. Well, it could be worse. I still like most of the people I work with, but the organization in the place has just gone down the tube, plus the fact that we're short-staffed. I just hope that most of our internal problems haven't compromised our service. The newest announcement will usher in more huge changes: we were bought out. Well, kinda. The company is partially owned by Lutheran Hospital and partially owned by the radiology group that staffs it and other imaging places in the Lutheran Health Network. Anyway, the radiologists are selling their portion of the company to the hospital, so that means that the staff will become Lutheran Hospital employees, and much of our registration procedures will change to be streamlined with the hospital's process. The company name will be changing too. So yeah, basically it's a good thing that I am leaving permanently now, because if I were to try and come back I'd have to be retrained because most everything will be changing. It's just been a frustrating month working there, which is sad because I used to be quite proud of my job and I felt we provided a good service. Oh well. Two more days to go!

On a happier note, last week I did have one of those all is right with the world evenings. My girlfriends and I went downtown to this place called Club Soda, and we sat outside, had a drink, and just chatting the night away. I ended up staying and hour longer than I had intended to. It was one of those nights where you just try and hold onto it as long as you can, a collision of past and future, with people who you grew up with and who in many ways know you better than you know yourself. It just gave me one of those "this is how life should be" moments. I need to work on creating those sorts of worry-free, carefree moments more often.

Okay, my bed is calling my name!

But first:
L - It's a small world - Ally was in my Manresa group the one year I was a group leader. She was one of my favorites (oops, are GLs not supposed to play favorites? ;) ). Your job sounds sweet, almost as cool as your title!
Mikey - Congrats on the employment! I do hope that eventually you find something in the field you were expecting. How is life in the Nati?
Kate - Thanks for the email, and a million apologies for not writing back! I hope you're having one of those life-changing experiences.
Sean - I feel bad if I don't give you a shout-out too. Hi?

I miss you all and love you much!

Alicia :)

And the fonts all look exactly the same once they're posted. BOO-URNS.

Howdy ho, neighbor!

That was quite a throwback... Oh, Home Improvement, what a show.  Anyway, sorry it's been so long since I've written.  I promise I read the blog much more often than I write.  A lovely phone chat with Mikey, email from Kate in Ghana, and phone call from both Alicia AND Sean (to the tune of a not-so-favorite song of mine) made me realize that it was about damn time that I wrote to you all.  A & S, I owe you a return phone call, but this weekend has been crazy busy (details below) and today I have lost my voice, yet again.  Soon, I promise.  Also, notice that I am currently using one of my favorite fonts for this entry:  Georgia.  WOOT!

Well, I am officially a working woman.  My first two weeks of work were training weeks, so this past week (week 3) was my first full legitimately real week of work.  It's been great so far.  I'm not sure how well I've explained the job to any of you, so I'll do my best to provide a succinct description.  I am an investigator.  I know, most B.A. job title ever.  I work with three attorneys who serve as Guardians ad litem.  A Guardian ad litem is an attorney appointed by the court to represent the best interests of a child who has a neglect/abuse case filed by the Children and Family Services Agency in DC.  The GALs advocate for the child in many capacities, primarily making sure that the child/ren are in the best possible living situation (usually we try for a family member if possible, and we always want siblings to be placed together if no family members are available).  The GALs also make sure that everything is squared away for the kids at school, if they need an IEP plan we work that out, make sure that they're medical stuff is taken care of, etc etc.  So I basically assist with all these tasks.  I talk to family members, run criminal checks, subpoena witnesses or subpoena for medical records, gather school records, talk to teachers, meet with the child, all that sort of investigative research stuff that the lawyer needs help with.  I hope that nutshell description made sense.  Anyway, I really like the organization.  It's got a really good approach to addressing children/family issues in a comprehensive (that's such a buzzword these days, I know) manner.  In addition to the Guardian ad litem project, they have a Health Access Project, Family Permanency Project, and a Special Education Project.  I don't feel like explaining those right now.  You can read about them at our website if you're bored.  To sum it up, the people I work with are really cool, it's a structured but laid back and supportive environment.  I only have to dress up if we go to court, which means I'm free to wear my chacos on most days!  AND the office is really big on people taking some down time (since the lawyers tend to become completely consumed by the cases and don't take a lot of breaks), so they schedule fun little things a couple times a week.  For example, one day we had a make your own PB&J lunch (free food, woot), and this past Friday, we had a happy hour in the staff lounge because a staff member was leaving... I'm talking REALLY good cheese and crackers and bruschetta and baked crab snacks and tomato-basil-mozzarella kabobs... not to mention the beer (the good stuff, like yuengling, corona, stella, dos equis) and vodka cranberries.  Free drinks, woot!  Haha.  In a nutshell, so far, so good with the jobsky.

This past weekend, I actually flew back home to Wilmington.  My apologies to our current Cincinnati resident, but there was not a second of time to make it down to the Nat.  I flew in late Friday night, Saturday I had my family reunion, that night I went to see Titanic: The Musical in Wilmington, and I flew out on Sunday.  The reunion was really great, and the Staley family was in full force (meaning we outnumbered the other 5 branches of the Ritter tree... descendants of my grandmother and her siblings).  The musical was INCREDIBLE.  Who would have thought that such talent existed in Wilmy?  And, the best part about my weekend at home was attending the Titanic dinner at the General Denver Hotel.  It was hilarious.  The owner dressed up as Captain Smith, and we were seated at long tables with other "first class passengers."  They had placards at each seat with the name of a passenger on the ship, and at the end of the meal we got to find out whether we survived.  Tomilyn and I embarked on this little journey together, and we both survived!!  This was especially impressive considering Tomilyn was actually a dude.  And, the most important thing is that the food was SO SO SO good.  Scrumtrulescent, you might say.

So this week is Ally's 21st birthday... fun fun fun!  And this weekend the word is that Kaitlyn Kramer, Meredith Konerman, and probably Evan Werk and Matthew Mellon are coming to the cit-tay.  Super sweet.  Also, the good ol' XU alumni association is hosting a tailgate before the Reds/Nationals game this weekend, and they've reserved a section for us.  Ballin.

Okay friends, I'm off to bed.  Some closing thoughts:

Kate:  ODD. Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  I first learned of this condition when my brother was diagnosed with it when he was younger. Cha.

Mikey:  Keep it up, Mr. Bank Teller.

Sean:  I danced to Solja Boy last weekend.  It was totally lame without you.

Alicia:  Thanks for initiating the call this weekend.  Sean sounded a little tipsy... eh?  Hope you two had a blast at the wedding.

So much love,

L.Stales.

Hello Everyone,
I, like Sean, have not posted in quite some time so I thought I'd give it a go tonight. First, I should just say that I miss you guys very much. Something happens everyday that makes me think about one of you. An example would be that this morning I was listening to Love (that Beatles Cirque Du Soleil album), and I can't help think about Casciato (said Ca-SHIT-o) and how good he is at guitar, or just how much I love rocking out with all of you. That happens a lot on my way to work...

On to work. The director of the summer camp I'm working at quit a few weeks ago, and I became the "Staff Director". So yes, once again I am co-directing something...when will it end?!? The other director deals with the parentals, write-ups, discipline, etc. I deal with the staff, scheduling, and other day to day nonsense. Needless to say, it has increased my work load 100 fold. I think they just gave me the job so Nikki could have more time to get the hang of it before taking over 100 % when I leave in a few weeks for Ghana. However, instead of the easy time I had in store for my summer employment, I find myself frequently stressed out and on edge. The kids I work with aren't very good. In fact, they are sometimes quite bad. Frequent temper tantrums, constant fighting, cursing, spitting, pretty much everything that they know is against the rules (the rules we GO OVER every morning!!). Last Friday, we were supposed to go on a field trip to Purina Farms, which is a petting zoo of sorts. Unfortunately, our bus began to malfunction on the highway and we were barely able to make it to an exit ramp before it completely fell apart. So we had to watch 45 kids on some office's grassy area until another bus arrived, which then took us to The City Museum, which is just a giant play area for children. It's three floors of completely interactive, wall-to-wall insanity for young children. Luckily for me (...that's sarcasm, folks) I was chaperoning the 5 & 6 year olds who you can imagine are completely attentive to me throughout the field trip, and tried very hard not to get lost. By the end, one child with ODD (look it up!) completely shut down and decided not to walk anymore, so I had to fireman carry him the 2 blocks to the bus. Unpleasant. Some aspects of the job are good, though. A free YMCA membership is one perk. Also, I get to make friendship bracelets and get paid, which is also pretty sweet.

Another plus about my job are the people. Several of them are pretty cool and we go out to dinner and get drinks sometimes when we get off. If nothing else, we are commiserating buddies, which is needed on days when you have to lug around a kid on your shoulder in the 90 degree heat while making sure none of the other kiddies dart out into on-coming traffic. However, there is this one lady (Sylvia) who drives me absolutely insane. First off, she's 67 years old. I'm not trying to be ageist here, but she can hardly walk, let alone do many of the tasks required of counselors. Secondly, she is always bossing us around IN FRONT OF THE CAMPERS. If she doesn't like something we're doing, she'll voice her opposition loudly in front of the entire camp, and comes off sounding like a crazy person. I feel like I'm going to have a shouting match with her most days because of her inability to do anything herself, except tell other people what they're doing wrong. But then I feel like it's wrong to fight with senior citizens...it's a dilemma. An example of her craziness was something she told the other director about today: two kids were fighting and she had to pull them apart, and they kept on fighting! She couldn't believe it! Plus, she was upset that none of the other counselors were coming to her aid. Hmmm. I've broken up over 20 fights myself, and have very little pity for Ms. Sylvia. If she can't do the work of being a counselor, then maybe she should just turn her free membership to the Y in and find another job. It would sure make my days more pleasant!

...Wow...that was a bit of a rant. I hope you enjoyed that! :)

In other news, Ghana is coming up quickly. Two weeks folks! I've gotten all my shots, my visa is currently being processed, my lodging is booked, and soon my bags will be packed. I'll try to get online once every few days (or once a week...?) and update you guys on everything via the blog or e-mails. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to put up at some point, too. I'm jealous that I have nothing yet to contribute photo-wise yet...

Well, I'm gonna wrap it up for now. I have to wake up at 6:45 tomorrow and began another beautiful day at camp. At least I'll get more time to work on my latest bracelet (in the Ghanaian flag colors of course!).

I love you guys a lot, and I promise to be in touch vocally (via the phone) very soon. Once the craziness of "Staff Direct-ing" dies down...Keep posting on the blog! It brings me much joy every time I read it!

Peace and Love,
Kate

P.S. Keep my grandma in your prayers. She's in the hospital right now because she's having trouble breathing. She's doing better, though.

P.P.S. A Bob Dylan song just came on my i-tunes (The Times They Are A-Changin'). Not only reminds me of you guys--Dylan always does--but seems quite apropos, eh?

Cars, Kayaks, and a New Apartment

Where does the time go?

I felt like it hadn't been that long since I'd posted, but then I looked at the blog and saw that it's been almost a month. However, the good news is that, even though sometimes I feel like I haven't done much of note this summer, I have a fair amount to fill you all in on. (With clever section headings, too!)

All (My) Cars Go to Heaven...
Bad news first. As the section heading suggests, in spite of my efforts to clean the flood waters out of my car, it will not survive. At minimum, there is a computer that would have to be replaced, and probably other repairs after that. Plus, the carpeting was still soaking wet, in spite of all the work I did trying to clean that out. A big boo-urns to that!

So I am currently car-less, although I have use of my family's cars while I'm at home (and I will be allowed to borrow one to visit Alicia this weekend). So my future car situation is up in the air until we see what we will be getting from the insurance. I'm pretty sure I could get by in the Cities next year without a car, but of course it would make it more difficult to come home to visit, of course. So we'll see what happens with that.

Minnesota, hats off to thee!
In case you don't recognize that line (and I don't expect you to), that's from the University of Minnesota's fight song, the Minnesota Rouser.

Last week, I took a trip with my family to the great state of Minnesota that was part apartment-seeking expedition and part vacation. We took our dogs with us and stayed in a cabin on a lake about an hour north of the Twin Cities. Our activities involved swimming, campfires, taking naps in the hammock, flying kites on the beach, and (my personal favorite) exploring the entire lake by kayak. Oh, and I grilled out for dinner most nights, which I always enjoy. Overall, it was an enjoyable, relaxing trip, other than the 11-hour drives that ended up taking 14-15 hours with stops and Chicago traffic.

We spent a day and a half of the trip in Minneapolis, where I showed my family the U's campus and saw the giant spoon:
But most of the time in the Cities was spent in apartment searching, which brings me to my next section:

Home Sweet Home: Loring Park, Minneapolis
After about a month of online searching and several showings in Minneapolis, I am the proud renter of Apartment 24 at 205 W. 15th Street, in the neighborhood of Loring Park, in Minneapolis, Minnesota!

I'm pretty excited about my apartment. I'm thankful that the cost of living in Minneapolis and my grad student funding are such that I am able to afford a one-bedroom apartment on my own. I'm not sure how it will be to live on my own, but we all know that living with randos is a hit-or-miss affair, so I'm glad I have the chance to live on my own and maybe get a roommate later if I find someone that I would enjoy living with.

The apartment is on the second floor of an older brownstone building with hardwood floors and a beautiful view of the next-door apartment building five feet away. Okay, so the view sucks, but it's good otherwise. And the neighborhood is really cool. It's on the edge of downtown Minneapolis, so all the downtown stuff is only like five blocks away. And there's a big park about a half a block away from my apartment. The sculpture garden in the picture above is only about a block away, and the building in the background of the picture is St. Mary's Basilica, the church in the neighborhood. There are good bike lanes and trails in the neighborhood and through downtown to the U, which is good since I plan on biking to school, and other places that I go, at least when it's not too cold. Then I'll ride the bus, which has major lines near my neighborhood. It's close enough to the U, but not so close that I'll have to deal with annoying undergrads getting drunk all the time (Wow, I've turned into an old fogey pretty fast. Then again, I never liked stupid drunk people. Cool drunk people are fine. And the drunkards are probably worse at a Big Ten school like the U than they are at the X.)

Anyway, that's enough about my apartment. But this means that you have a place to crash when you come to visit the U, Kate. And that goes for anyone else who wants to come to the Cities to visit. (hint, hint) ;)

And Alicia already told the story of her surprise visit to Indianapolis, so that's about all I know right now.

Much love to all my A-Teamers! Hope that your summers are going great!

Fútbol, scanners, bridal showers, and bikes...

Hola amigos,

I'm bored out of my mind alone in the house, so why not post?

Let's see, what have I been up to? I believe I left off right before Father's Day weekend where I rediscovered the world of soccer refereeing. That was an adventure. I did six games in two days. I concluded that 16 year old boys run very fast. No, but really, for the most part I enjoyed being back in the game, minus stupid parents who don't know what they are talking about, and I made away with a nice chunk of cash for my endevours (okay, so that might be the real reason why I donned the yellow jersey once again). Plus it was fantastic exercise, because like I said, 16 year old boys run really fast.

Work is going pretty well. I'm moved to more of the second shift now, which I actually like better because things get really quiet and slow down after 5:00pm. As the evening person, my new official role is "scanning girl," as all of the paperwork we have for each patient needs to be scanned into an electronic medical record of sorts. So I scan and label approximately 500 pieces of paperwork a day. Nellie Belle (the scanner) and I are becoming good friends. The only negative aspect is that there seems to be a lot more drama in the office lately, much more than I ever remember there being before. Most of it I think is caused by this one girl who has been there for about a year and is the type where drama follows her everywhere (or does she create it?). I'm sure you've all known someone of this type of personality. Add that to the fact that job responsibilities and protocol are shifting around from week to week (we've be "in transition" a lot lately). Older ladies do not deal well with change, particularly when it comes to technology, so that makes them stressed and fuels the drama. So yeah, it's been interesting. Props if you followed all that.

Other than that, I've been hanging out a lot with my high school friends who are in town. We've been drinking lots of coffee and going for drinks. Two of them are getting married in August, so the rest of us are throwing them bridal showers in July. This is my first experience in bridal shower planning, so hopefully it'll go well. We're knocking them out in one weekend in July: one on Saturday and the other on Sunday. Crossing my fingers that they'll go well. I went shopping last Friday and got caught in a rainstorm. For the life of me I cannot find lavender crepe paper anywhere. Those were two very random sentences.

Speaking of rain, Kate, I hope you haven't been affected by all of this flooding I read about in the papers. Lately I have been experiencing lots of random thunderstoms, which I find to be an intriguing part of summer. It'll be nice an sunny, and within the next hour the storm will roll in, it'll rain for 10 minutes, and then it'll roll out. How refreshing. I remember when I was in Guadalajara a few years ago in the summer it would rain every day at exactly 3pm. I just find that soothing, and I don't know why. Fort Wayne is starting to develop that pattern.

I just returned today from a surprise 24 hour visit to Indianapolis. I am lucky that my sisters' travel sports require them to go to Indianapolis a lot, which gives me a free ride to visit Sean. This weekend Kaylin had a softball tournament there and Melinda had a soccer practice, so I tagged along. While there I did something that I had never done before: went on a 20 mile bike ride. Sean had been planning on going with his dad and uncles, so I figured, why not? I admit I was a little apprehensive about being able to pull of this athletic feat, as bike riding is not my usual form of exercise. It was really fun though. What was even cooler was that it was at night, as in it started around 11pm. We rode about 10 miles downtown, going through the IUPUI campus and around monument circle, then back up the east/west dividing road to over to Butler's campus and then back to where we started. We were lucky in that we finished right before it started to downpour. There were about 2000 riders. The ride offered some cool views of the city, plus it was just neat to see that many people exciting about biking. Although I'm quite sore, it was worth it.

So that's the update for now. I hope you are all well. I definitely miss you all. Keep me updated. :)

Love,
Alicia

932 Westminster Street

Hi friends,

I do apologize for not posting sooner. I thought my internet troubles would be over once I moved to the big city, but alas, they persist. We bought wireless internet for our house, but it hasn't worked since my arrival (shake fist--COMCAST!! BOO URNS!). They were supposed to have it fixed by today. They broke that promise. As a result, our house remains without internet, and my issues with trust grow worse by the hour. Jk. I am currently writing you from the love cafe (there is seriously a middle-aged couple making out in the corner. gah). For some reason, I was unable to connect to the cafe's wi-fi, but luckily a person called Scott Harper has an unlocked signal nearby. YAY FOR SCOTT HARPER.

H'okay, so the move last weekend went pretty smoothly. Our house is super cute, one of these days I'll post a picture for y'all to see (ya can't take the country out of the girl). It is a brick row house painted bright red. BRIGHT. A ridiculous red. With green trim on the windows. Yes, it looks like Christmas. Worst color combo EVER, but at least it's distinct. We spent a lot of time trying to come up with a name for it... something with sexual undertones, but still discreet. Because red=sex. Anne was obsessed with the word "coitus," which is perhaps the furthest thing from discreet. We have since landed on "Cherry Coitus," or "CC" for short. I think we can do better, but this will suffice for the time being. My room is pretty much put together. I bought AND built some dressers from Ikea. BALLIN. I am a master at construction. That is false. Also, our street is cool. There is a little playground for children, and many neighbors that I would like to meet at some point.

My first weekend was pretty low-key, mostly just unpacking and eating with the fam. On our way back to the hotel one night, we got massively re-routed by a pride parade. Our hotel was surrounded by it, there was no way in. Fear not, L.Staley put on her Bad Ass shoes and handled the situation. I drove up to the little street behind the hotel, which was blocked, and parked my car. I got out, in the pouring rain (why is it always raining during times like this?), and walked into the middle of the adjacent thoroughfare to speak with the police officer directing traffic (and traffic was a DISASTER). I explained my situation, and he said I could back up and use a little driveway that bypassed his police tape to get onto our little street. Right then, my dad began to approach in his van. I told him to stop, blocking all of the traffic behind him (lots of angry horns for this one, because everyone was having to merge from four lanes into one, and he was blocking the entire lane they were merging into). He basically set up a nice pick. I backed up and pulled into the driveway, he followed, and we were back at the hotel in no time. I became a much more aggressive driver in a matter of hours. It's a necessity. And I have to drive for work sometimes, to make site visits, so I may as well learn how to intimidate my way through DC traffic (this is much easier in the Escape than the Mustang).

This week I've just been checking things off the to-do list. I got my car inspected (after waiting in line for 2.5 hours), got my DC driver's license, new DC plates (which say "Taxation without Representation" at the bottom. oh, I heart DC and its willingness to put a political statement on license plates), and a parking pass (you have to have one to park in a residential area. keeps the tourists from stealing your spots). I opened a new bank account with Suntrust Bank. I got a public library card. Now, I'm looking into gyms and cell phone plans (I need to use my cell at work as well, so I want a DC number. It would be pretty shitty for me to tell people we represent to call me long distance. Also, I get free parking, full milage reimbursement, and $50 toward my cell phone plan every month. Lest you think this job was completely ripping me off by requiring me to drive/use my cell, it's not). Anyway, I'll post my new cell number as soon as I work it out.

This weekend is going to be roomie weekend (right now Katie and I are in our house, as well as two subletters. One named Livy, who is a friend of a friend type contact, and the other is Ally White, who will be a junior at Xavier. Anne will also be in town for a couple of weeks, though not in our house). This is the first weekend that all four of us will be in town, so we will be celebrating. Tonight I'm meeting Katie for happy hour, and then we'll head back home to find Ally (poor underage child) and hang. Tomorrow we are going to head over to Eastern Market for some produce and nick-nacks. Tomorrow night we're heading to a party (at the house of some friend of Anne's), which is good because it is CHEAP and Ally won't get CARDED. Bingo.

Final thoughts:

--I am happy the Celtics won. Katie, Scott, Ally and I went out to a sports bar on good ol' 18th street on Tuesday to see the first half of the 6th game. James Posey is a baller.

--I accidentally locked myself out of my house for 7 hours on Wednesday without keys (obviously), cell, money, shades, etc. I spent the day at the library until someone got home. IDIOT. Now I've fully mastered our doors/locks.

--Alicia, you gave the best description of your time in NY, and I love that you have initiated picture postage on the blog. Also, I had to chuckle at Christine's comment about Times Square.

--Sean, I reiterate my sentiments from that voicemail I left you. Also, I like your use of "the weather" as a reason for your choice of location. Oh, few people have the same sophisticated humor as us A-teamers.

--Kate, I fully support/affirm your decision to avoid having children for many years. And I am really excited for your trip to Ghana, but mostly for you to relocate on the East Coast so we can plan weekend trips to and fro our new home cities.

--Mikey, I expect to see you and yours in DC soon. There's always the 4th of July. Did you say that was a bad weekend? I don't remember. Today is Friday. Give me a call re: LaSalle.

Sorry I wrote so much but said so little. In short, I just want to say that I'm settling in nicely, and I'm looking forward to DC explorations next week (now that the to-do list is nigh on complete), a trip to CO the following week, a DC Fourth of July, and then beginning work. And most importantly, I love you all. Take care, keep posting.

L.Stales.

new address (Kate, the name always makes me think of you and your love of the British):

932 Westminster St. NW

Washington DC 20001

Summer Days...

Hello Everyone,
Alicia--first a shout out to your recent NY (and for a day even the "C") travels--thanks for taking a picture of my bridge. I'm sure I will become more acquainted with that architectural wonder during the next year. Stales--I'm so glad you're in DC! Glad, and very jealous. Can't wait to plan an East Coast rendezvous soon. Mikey--I ate spaghetti and meatballs today and thought of you. Sean--I'm sorry your car got flooded. I'm sure it smells unpleasantly. :)

And thanks to all of you for the b-day greetings. I wish I had some crazy story to tell about my entrance into the 22-year old club ('bout time eh?), but the day entailed work, ice-cream cake, and a trip to buffalo wild wings with my work associates. Afterwards, my brother Pat and I had to make a late-night trip to the store to purchase four watermelons for Kevin's football jamboree. Insanity!

Life has been good on this side of the Mississippi (I'm the only one of us on this side!! How sad...) Actually, we've gotten a lot of rain, a few tornado warnings, and some flooding north of us. The Mississippi River is quite high right now in our neck of the woods. I know this from personal experience. You see, last Thursday I took a group of 40 day-camp children to the Alton Lock and Dam in Alton, Illinois. Delightful. We did get to see the high waters. We're not to '93 level yet, but it's high. For those of you who don't know about the flood of '93 wikipedia it. It was quite an important event in my youth. EDUCATE YOURSELF!

A bit more about work...Being a YMCA day camp counselor is quite stressful. Let me paint a quick picture of my day. I'll use today, in fact. Just an average Monday, right? Well let's see...I arrive at 6:45 to set up the tables and chairs in the upstairs aerobics room at the Y (we're an indoor/outdoor camp--not solely outdoors). Then the children begin to arrive at 7. I start to color. Children begin fighting over legos. Fighting stops because gov't subsidized b-fasts have arrived. Praise the Lord! More fighting because so-and-s0 doesn't like s0-and-so and they're sitting next to them, giving them the stink-eye, breathing on them, etc. I look up--it's 8:00. GAH! Eventually we take them outside for playtime until lunch. Today we had several altercations that quickly moved into physical fights. One began because a young boy told another young boy that "This country was before before it had black people in it". Oh. Dear. Lord. After handling that matter (very sternly, mind you). It was lunch time.

Needless to say, by the time my shift is over I'm quite exhausted. I want nothing more than to come home and just sleep away the afternoon, but it always seems like something gets in the way of my goal. Oh well, I guess it's just another test of my less than infinite patience. It also affirms that my desire to wait a REALLY long time to have children of my own.

In other news, Ghana planning is going smoothly. I have two doctors appointments this week (Tuesday and Wednesday) to get my vaccinations. I leave in less than a month people. How crazy is that??? By the time I get back I have one more week and then off to begin my year long love affair with JVC and NYC.

I'm definitely rambling at this point. Probably because I am quite sleepy. :) (props to those who get the reference...) I hope all of you are doing well. I love you and miss you, even though my lack of contact might say otherwise. Just know that every time I'm sternly disciplining a child (about 28r732979327432 times a day), I'm wishing I was with you guys.

Peace and Love,
Kate

New York, New York...

Kate, this is the bridge that leads you to your future home.

While I did not go there, I did think of you while I was on that bridge.

Why hello, amigos. I have been having lots of adventures since my last post, and I am quite excited to share them with you.

Well first the not exciting stuff, which is that while I have been keeping busy, I have been working pretty much whenever I have been home. As it turns out, I get to work one day short of full-time every week for the rest of the summer! While that is good because I can use the money, I suddenly find myself without much lazy time, but I guess that's better than being bored. Oh, and this weekend after a three year hiatus I am going to adventure back into the soccer refereeing world for the Fort Wayne annual tournament. (I can't remember if I kept that part of my identity hidden.) It should be highly interesting, so hopefully I remember how to do stuff and I don't get too many parents yelling at me. (A few screams is inevitable.)

So yeah, New York. I had my brother drive me down to Cincinnati on the 3rd, and Christine and I hit the road the following morning. It is a very good thing that she took my suggestion of leaving at 6am instead of 8am, because had we waited, we would have been caught in some pretty NASTY storms all the way to Columbus and probably beyond. As it turns out though, we just watched the ugly, dark blue and gray clouds approach from the west the entire way to Columbus as I was doing 80 or more up I71, cursing slow drivers, and doing my darnedest to outrun those storms (good thing, because those were the same ones that flooded Sean's car). I am proud to say that I succeeded. It did not rain the entire 11 hour drive there. :)

Let's talk about mountains. I love mountains. Christine lives in a fairly mountainous area with lots and lots of trees and windy roads. It was really pretty. And on the drive there we drove through northeastern PA including Scranton. Let me just say that they picked a beautiful location for The Office. I added that to my "places I want to live" list cause it was just so pretty.

We hit the city on Thursday, taking the metro-north train in the morning for about an hour and a half to Grand Central Station. I love trains, especially when they go along a route that is as pretty as the Hudson River. When we arrived we immediately hopped the Subway to the financial district. I had told Christine that we had to explore somewhere she had never been, so this was it. We hopped out at the Brooklyn Bridge stop and walked about 1/3 of the way across the bridge, which was cool. Then we found Wall Street. As we were walking down the streets there, which are very narrow compared to the rest of the newer parts of the city, I was trying to soak it all in. NYC is just in a constant state of busy-ness. So we turned down Wall Street, kind of dirty and ominous looking and then BAM there's the NYSE, a very prestigious looking building in the middle of very regular-looking buildings. After that we hit up Battery Park, where you can see the good old Statue of Liberty (although in the pictures I took it is just a little spec). Of course, there were lots of SofL street performers in the park, which amused me. I hadn't see a street performer since Spain. We made our way to Ground Zero, which as Christine said was nothing but a giant construction site. There really wasn't much to see, unless you wanted to go into the memorial museum. We were super-hungry though, so we headed to lunch. Christine's dad had said we could eat lunch on him at his favorite restaurant in the city, a place called Fiarello's near the Lincoln Center. Delicious!!!! (and also $$$, yikes). We had a few selections from their cold antipasto bar, a glass of wine each, and split a sausage and roasted pepper pizza. Those were probably the juiciest, most delicious peppers I've ever tasted in my life.

With our tummies super-satisfied, I made her take me to Times Square. She said she resented me slightly for that because "imagine if all of corporate, capitalist America vomited on a 3 block radius of Manhattan." Yep, she was right. We didn't stay there long. Eventualy we made our way to Central Park and proceeded to walk the entire thing. It was beautiful, but halfway through my feet hurt because we had also been walking a lot up to that point. We were going to find somewhere in Spanish Harlem for dinner (cause I wanted to use my Espanol and eat good ethnic food), but instead we ended up meeting her younger sister near Columbia for dinner. (She goes to Columbia and is taking summer classes, so she road the train with us to the city that morning.) Our exhaustion was at its height by then, so we made our way back to Grand Central and then the train back to her house.

That was the only day in the city, but the other big adventures included a short weekend trip to Saratoga Springs, a cute little horse-racing town about two hours north of where she lives. A very cute town, but also in the upscale way, as it is a summer retreat for many New Yorkers, as well as the summer home for the NYC ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra. We mainly did some shopping, ate more good and expensive food, stayed in a posh hotel, and walked around the town. We also rode a carousel and fed two ducks named Reginold and Maurice (the told us so) who lived in the historic ponds. (Yes that was after wine at dinner, but before hitting the bars.)

One night we did attempt to make paella, which somewhat failed miserably because the only short grain rice we could find was brown rice. Apparently it needed 50 minutes to cook, which we did not discover until after the 20 minutes that our recipe said had passed and the rice still wasn't done. Oh well, I learned another "what not to do" for next time. :)

Last Monday I flew back to Dayton and then had my dad pick me up and drive me home. All in all it was a fun trip, and definitely a good first visit to NY. I hope you all are having fun summers (congrats on the job, Staley!!!). Alas, now I must go help get things ready for my graduation party/cookout with the extended fam this evening. :)

Much love from the Fort!

Cocaine

Two weddings down, two (maybe three) to go!

The weekend before last, as I mentioned in my last post, I went up to Fort Wayne to one of Alicia's friend's wedding. And to be honest, I was more using it as an excuse to visit Alicia than actually caring about the wedding of two people I've never met before. It was a good trip.

This past weekend was my cousin's wedding in Indianapolis. Although she is one of four cousins that I have over 30, she is the first of my cousins to get married. (On my mom's side. I don't see my other cousins much.) I was an usher in the wedding, so I had to rent a tux, etc. Alicia came down for the wedding. It was a very nice ceremony and reception. Alicia and I owned the dance floor. :)

My other big excitement over the past couple of weeks was in buying a new bike. I hadn't gotten a new bike since I was five years old, so I was pretty excited about it. I'm planning on commuting by bike to school next year, to save money on gas and parking, plus do my part to save the environment. However, since it had been awhile since I'd been on a bike, I figured I should use the summer to get used to riding again. So I've been riding a little bit, and Alicia and I took a bike ride in a park near my house this past Sunday.

As I think I told you guys last year, I learned that I have the gene for the colon cancer that runs in my dad's family. So the last two days consisted of a not-so-fun exam prep and exam, but the results were good, and the doctor told me that I don't have to go through that for two years, so that's good.

This morning, I woke up to the not-so-pleasant news that my car was underwater. Our street has the annoying tendency to flood ever since the Great Labor Day Deluge of 2003. The storm sewers just overflow, and since our house is right by the drain, the water gets deepest in front of our house. In the past, the worst thing has been wondering how high the water would rise and pushing the idiots who tried to drive through the flood waters and killed their cars. Well, since
the storm was early in the morning, no one was awake to notice the rising flood waters, and my car was in water above the bumper before anyone noticed. So my day was spent vacuuming water out of my car and hoping that it would eventually start. Well, I'll save the details, but it looks like my car survived. We got it started enough to get it into the garage where it is currently drying.

So my summer's been a little bit busy, even if I don't exactly have a routine down yet.

P.S.
L-Dot, congrats on the job! I like the idea of responding "cocaine" to the question of "what are you doing?" I have my own little twist on that: when people ask me why I chose Minnesota, I've decided to start saying "the weather." That sure throws 'em for a loop. I've also gotten a lot of "What are you doing this summer?" Most people don't get the whole explanation above, and don't seem to be satisfied with my other answers, so cocaine it is. In fact, that sounds like a good title for this post!

Love you all!

So far...

First off, I just want to give a shout-out (via blog!) to Stales on her employment! Now you can finally tell all those noseys to shove it when they ask what you're doing next year. (...or you could keep telling them "cocaine". Either way works for me!).

As for me, I've had quite an interesting past couple of days. To start off, I guess I should inform all of you who do not know that I am working at a summer camp this summer (a YMCA day camp to be precise...). This past Satuday, we had a Metro-YMCA staff kickoff at some park up in North County. Needless to say, I had to be up at 6am on a Saturday to ride a bus to this park to then compete with my fellow counselors at the Carondelet Y against all the other Y's in the metropolitan St. Louis area. It was like nothing I've ever experienced before. There was an actual "spirit stick" involved to be awarded to the team w/ the most points. Plus, we had to come prepared w/ an original song to perform in front of all the other camps to show our spirit. Intense. Unfortunately, my Y did not win the "spirit stick", but we did win the "caring/honesty award" (representing one component of the Y's core values: caring, respect, responsibility, and trust). Hells yeah!
By the end of the afternoon I was sore, sunburned, and slightly dehydrated, but it was a pretty good time. I had hotdogs! And I got paid! So all in all a good day.

I had my first day of work today, but it's too soon for me to comment on it. Just know I'll store up stories to post later. I'm sure I'll have a plethora!

Well, that's it for me. I miss you guys a lot. I look forward to hearing more about all of your summers.

Peace,
Kate

P.S. I found out today that I won free tickets to an Old 97s concert this Friday. WOOT! Jealous much? :)

Employment

Well, friends, I have some news.

I am employed.  It's a pretty bizarre feeling, a blend of relief, anxiety, and excitement I suppose.  Oh, you want the details.  I will be an investigator for the guardian ad litem project at the Children's Law Center in Washington DC.  I'm already looking for a good trench coat.  Haha.  I begin July 8, which means I'll have two weeks to roam around DC and get settled, plus a week in Colorado with the fam, then back to DC for the 4th... before starting the whole 9 to 5 routine.  I dig.  I am starting with a group of newbie investigators (four-ish I think), so hopefully they won't suck and we can all be friends.  I am really pumped about the job, I think I'll enjoy it and gain a lot from it as well.

In other news, I am attempting to upload photos to facebook, but the wireless at the Wilmington Public Library is moving rather slowly today.  I also saw a great game at Great American Ballpark yesterday.  It made me quite happy.

That's about all here.  Love you!

Life in the Dub

Hi friends,

I apologize for my delay in posting, but it sort of fits in nicely to what I like to call life in the dub. "The Dub" is a nickname created for Wilmington by a less-than-appealing group of high schoolers back when I was a junior. Correction-- the name actually originated from a group of my friends who were seniors that year, although they used the term in an effort to mock the wannbe thug types who roamed the halls (white kids who were really into acting like rappers... not like you, Sean. You appreciate the artistic quality of hip-hop and understand the significance and relavance of hip-hop culture... these kids were just weenies). Anyway, back to my lack of posting. I don't have the internet. Ah, life in the Dub. My house is outside of the line for cable and such things. I live in the BOONS. And I love it. Sometimes. Allow me to give you a brief run-down of my life since graduation. I came home and was bored and sad, to put it bluntly. Then I went to DC for an interview. That was fun. I saw some old ateamers. Then I came back to the Dub and hung out with some high school friends who were around. This was also fun. It consisted of euchre, beer, meeting new girlfriends, and talking up a storm. I loved it. Last Sunday I had a graduation party, just for the extended family mostly. This was somewhat exhausting, but really enjoyable too. I made three cornholes in one turn (arguably the only time this will ever happen to me). I remembered how much I value my family. I realized that my cat, Roger, was missing... we found him the next day. He had been accidentally locked in the shed. I was super relieved to have found him, as he is about the most enjoyable part of my life at home. This week I've been doing a lot of lunches-- the best of which was lunch at MacD's Pub with Tomilyn and Steve Haines, our theatre director, GATE teacher, and life mentor in many ways... MacD's is an establishment that my family almost singlehandedly keeps in business. This was a great lunch, it lasted for over two hours and was very renewing. Yesterday I had dinner with Brittany and Laur at Arthur's, and then we met up with some Ca-shitty type people at Dana's for a bit. That was really great. Today I had lunch with Tomilyn at Jen's Deli, a local fave. She is leaving tomorrow for ND, so we're hanging a lot today (ice cream at gibson's goodies tonight)! Tomorrow I'll be heading up to C-bus with my friend Greg to watch his brother play in the State Tennis Tourney. This is HUGE for Wilmington Tennis and, therefore, huge for me. I am way pumped. Saturday I'll probably hit up a reds game with my dad in the afternoon, and then go to Drew's going away party that night (catching up with Molly a bit in the process).

All in all, what had been a rather hazy, confusing, and somewhat boring time has now become pretty busy. Seems like that's always the case. I'm feeling good right now. I've stopped trying to avoid seeing people in Wilmington because, let's face it, it's impossible. Especially if you go to church, jen's deli, el dorado, kroger, or the dentist... you will inevitably see people there and have to tell them you plans (or lackthereof). I am dying to respond to the "what are you doing?" question by saying "cocaine." Just for shits. Haha. Anyway, I'm enjoying Wilmington and my brief time with the fam (two weeks, to be precise). Love to all of you, and I'll try to stay on the blogging (no guarantees).

Highs and Lows?

You know, summer is one of those seasons with which I have an inconsistent relationship (winter being the other because I love snow but really don't like the cold, but that's another matter). I find myself going from one extreme feeling to the other caught in some sort of timewarp that seems inescapable, but yet everytime I answer the question, "What's today's date?" at work, I find that the weeks keep flying by. (That was a ridiculously long sentence.) (I have an obsession with parenthesis).

I have been back to work for two days now. Today was rather rough at good old MD Imaging, as yesterday was a holiday. That means that today was like a Monday (normally the busiest and craziest day of the work week) only about twice as crazy. I think we did about 30 CT scans on our only scanner in a span of eight hours, which is about twice as many as a normal full day. Usually I don't mind my job (the people I work with keep it interesting), but today was just one of those days that would pull anyone down. I definitely couldn't make a career as a receptionist, and I don't know how the ladies I work with do it, but hey, sometimes, you've got to work to live.

Then there are the times like yesterday evening, where I get to sit outside feeling the warm evening breeze and chatting with three of my childhood friends at our signature hangout spot: The Grind. We talk about the past, the present, the future, while staring at the lovely parking lot, watching the sunset, drinking coffee, or raspberry iced tea in my case. Everything just seems so...perfect. As if all is right with the world. Moments like these keep me sane and remind me of why I love summer so much.

Plus I get to read books that I want to read. :) I've already got one down, and I am working on the second. If you've got any must-read suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them.

Miss you all already!