of orange juice, boxes, kitchen knives and spices...

Orange Juice.
I was accepted into a program at work that is essentially for people who have the potential to cost the university a lot in insurance and health care. (that's me!) I and my cohorts have enough risk factors that the university is paying for a program designed to lower that risk. So - day one. four hours in and I'm kindof excited about it. 32 oz of watered-down orange juice and the worst part was trying to figure out how to store the rest of the OJ after I watered down the portion I'm supposed to drink today. I finally settled on a pitcher I purchased from Fiesta! and the jug that used to hold margarita mixer. I won't be needing the margarita mixer for awhile... no sugars until I break the addiction. so - down the drain it went. I didn't cry. I'm guessing it was because I'm also out of tequila and haven't yet found the blender so - no big loss. I'll let you know the progress of this new adventure as it unfolds.

Boxes.
I have unpacked exactly 10ish boxes. which, by my count leaves about 30 (or perhaps 300) more. Things are slowly finding their way to where they belong. Tonight... I need to decide between the kitchen and my clothing... But I like the new place. I met some neighbors, Danny and Laura who live upstairs and diagonal across the courtyard. He's a seminarian and she's just as sweet as can be. They go running every morning. They made me cookies. I invited them over for boardgames once I find them among the boxes. Perhaps they are geeks like me.

Kitchen Knives and Spices.
These are things I haven't found yet. They exist somewhere behind and underneath layers of stacked cardboard in what is supposed to be my office/spare bedroom but what is now just a room full of boxes. I'm having trouble cooking with only half my kitchen unpacked - and that half not at all placed where it's most convenient or makes the most sense. My mother found and unpacked a box labeled "kitchen" which happened to contain coffee mugs, shot glasses and wine glasses. So, all beverages in the past 5 days have been consumed in coffee mugs, because it seems silly to consider drinking water, lemonade or juice from a shot and or wineglass. She did not find the dishes, bowls or drinking glasses. they're around somewhere.

Let me know if you want to lend a hand. ... and if you find those kitchen knives!

a moratorium on rooftops and jumping

damn.

Found out today that the aforementioned assumed good news was well... premature. Someone was promoted. ...just wasn't me. So congratulations to that other girl. and for me.. well, it's one day closer to my turn.

preparing for changes: a kind of catch-all

There's so much going on and I can't really say some of it out loud as of yet so this seems some sort of substitute for the type of rooftop shouting or at the very least jumping up and down that has been building inside me for a week or more.

First off - the movers will be here a week from tomorrow and truth be told I'm not much farther along than the last time we talked.
So this is apt to be a busy weekend indeed. The hope is to leave out only what I need to survive for the next 7 days and box tape and label the rest for transport. I pick up my keys in a week and will go over to the apartment that night and figure out furniture configuration.

Second - I think it might be nearly safe to consider the possibility of saying here, while not actually announcing (ie. rooftops and jumping), that I should hear (good news) about a (possible) promotion today. I have no details. I have had no details for a week and it is killing me. Gotta love bureaucracy and all the paperwork and steps involved. This could mean a sizable move up in position and ...benefits. of course again... no details. did I mention that it's killing me? ugh... the waiting.

soon, the jumping

A milestone occured the other day. It's been four years since I rescued Libby from the shelter, and since they figured she was about a year old when we adopted each other, she's now about five years old. ...and still as goofy as ever. So - in tribute and celebration I offer some of the silly tidbits about my faithful companion:

Yesterday, I needed to do a little vaccuuming and as I sucked up bits of doghair and dust from the carpeting, Libby felt the need to inhale all the food in her bowl just incase the vaccuum decided to pick up more than what was on the carpet. She looked extra-satisfied when she licked the bowl clean, just as the vaccuum was moving from livingroom to bedroom, past the now empty bowl. Mine, all mine.

Motorcyles crive her especially crazy... that, and city buses. Their presence, idoling on the street below our picture window, is known to throw Libby into bouts of high-pitched whining and increase the need for her to jump from the windowsill to the floor run about in cirles, only to return to the windowsill for more whining. Special caution is to be taken while traveling with dog in car, passing motorcycles and city busses as there is considerably less room for the running in circles/whining routine.

Waking is a duty Libby does not take lightly. After the alarm, but before the master has risen from the bed, if I linger too long... Libby will take to her post. She stands directly next to the vertical blinds which cover the sliding glass doors to the balcony and wag her tail. This sets the blinds into a frenzy, knocking against eachother and filling the room with light from outside. This, I have decided, is the worst noise in the world.

I'm hoping she adjusts to the new home well, and somewhat sheepishly - this is one of my main concerns about the move. I hope she will love that the new apartment is bigger, even if the windows are not as dog-friendly. I hope that she appreciates my shorter commute as much as I know I will. Plus, we will be within a few miles of two dogparks. w00t!

Well - today's a big day with the building dedication at my school - so I best be off to greet the VIPs... hopefully this day will go quickly with all it's festivities... and the news and the yelling from the rooftops and the jumping up and down can begin shortly thereafter. for now - the waiting... and the VIPs.

31 days and counting...

The movers come in a month. I have exactly 6 boxes packed. Well, two of those were boxes previously packed and stored in a closet. I have exactly 4 boxes packed, and 2 boxes moved from storage closet to the dining room/moving staging-area.

I packed my books first. Time for leisure reading is something I don't plan for in the next 30 days. Except of course for my book club book. We're reading "Same Kind of Different as Me," by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. It's an interesting book so far and proving to be one of many easy distractions from the menacing job of packing up my life and moving to Lakewood.

I have lots of projects planned for once the move has actually happened... painting walls, hanging curtains, making the place homey and all that I dream it will be. I think about where to place furniture.

Pre-moving is always difficult. It's hard to get excited about getting cardboard-dry hands and the fear of accidentally packing something you desperately need in an unmarked box at the bottom of the pile. But I will prevail.

Tonight's goal... 3 more boxes. ... and maybe - packing something other than books.

Downsizing. . .

I've been living beyond my means for a long time. ...my whole life it seems.
It's a pattern ingrained and I want to undo it.
So I'm looking to downsize - to make larger payments to my debts and learn about living with less.

It dawned on me recently that the Lord will care for my safety and security and that it's time I start pairing down - thinning out... what it is I really need? a room with a place for my bed, a place for my things and a home for my dog. (she is non-negotiable).

seriously - who could abandon this face?


but many other things I can live without.

I can budget and make progress and eat more ramen and rent a room instead of an apartment and sell or give away much of the material things that cling to the surfaces that surround me.

I can...
live with less.
eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
ride my bicycle or take public transit even more than I already do.
read library books.

so - it looks like I'll be selling much of what I own over the next couple of months.
let me know if you're interested.
also - know anyone who has a room to rent come September?

a sunburn

These train conversations are passing me by And I don't have nothing to say...

The other night, Jared called and set the phone down on the piano so i could hear his rendition of Raining in Baltimore. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnzU0IzJJrY

it was a good feeling - to hear him crooning out a mellow melancholy tune while thinking about how much I miss him. I guess that I should. three thousand five-hundred miles away. what would you change if you could?

maybe things aren't going so well in parts of my life - but I do have a big love... I have a lot of great big loves in my life - my friends - the people who have seen me at my best, and seen me at my worst... weighed the options and chosen to stay.

I haven't had much to say for a long time.. work and school have been getting the best of me and I hate that... because there is so much more.

I live backwards - I've known this for awhile now.
certainly the best days I've had in my life to this point are pretty far removed in the past.
sometimes there's sadness in living backwards and imaging all of the "if only" moments, but today I live backwards and I savor. I think of days and nights in Burnett Park and know it will always be a happy place in the middle of the city for me. I think of hoblitzelle and time spent soul-searching.


laying on the grass with Paul in front of the stockyards museum feeling the sun on my skin and the warmth of friends in my midst.


a good friend who sent me a homemade witch for halloween... and showed back up in my life after a long time gone.

thanks for the phone call...
and thanks for the raincoat

early lessons in diversity...

I caught the scent of baby powder in the breeze today and it made me think of Grace Betty.



Grace Betty was my first Cabbage Patch Kid. It was Christmas, 1983, and I was five years old. Coleco had mass-marketed the Cabbage Patch Kid as the "it" toy for every little girl. There were riots in toy stores, akin to the 1996 Tickle Me Elmo craze. My parents were always strapped for cash and shopped last minute, but tried to get us kids what we most wanted each year. And what I most wanted was to adopt a Cabbage Patch Kid.

In smalltown ohio, the population was 99.99999% caucasian and .00001% hispanic/asian. And by the time Santa my mom made it out to the toystore to purchase the doll of my every five-year-old desire, the only dolls left on the shelf were African American. and so - Grace Betty came to me through a quite progressive inter-racial adoption. Her cloth skin, yarn hair and painted eyes were brown and her bulbus plastic head smelled - oddly - of baby powder. She didn't look anything like me... but she was mine. ...and no power in the universe, not even a cheeky older brother - could sever my love for her. (note, also - I quickly discovered that the large plastic head attached to the soft cloth body made Grace Betty an apt weapon against my brother's various torments.) Grace Betty didn't seem to mind this - and so she was my baby, my heroine and the bruiser of my annoying older brother.

I don't know if this simple happenstance made it easier for me to adapt as my smalltown grew and accepted its first African American families. I'm not certain of the impact of Grace Betty on my views on racial equality and social justice. But I think maybe in some small way - she's always been there as a reminder... a reminder of my parents' love and courage, and their refusal to sway to social stereotypes. ...and it makes me think that one day I will buy my own daughter baby dolls of different races - so she can learn to love all people.