I Wouldn't Do That if I Were You.

What's that? You want my opinion on something? Always happy to oblige.
Here's my Unrecommended List:

• Popping wasabi peas into your mouth without being fully aware of what you are eating. I also don't recommend eating wasabi peas at all while you're trying to make small talk with a person you just met.
  This is especially true if the latter part of this un-recommendation is in play.
  
  
• Wearing flip flops in the rain in NYC.
  It's a bit of an equation: crap on the sidewalk + water = liquification > my tolerance of said liquified substance on my bare feet. And yes, I just realized that I have previously posted about excrement and flip flops and their convergence on my feet. Perhaps I should unrecommend wearing flip flops altogether.... nah.
  
  
• Making eye contact with the man on the subway who just took a bite out of his beer can. Or asking him if he wants to share some of that fine lookin' malt beverage.
  
  
• Shots of Easy Cheese, straight up. Matthew.
  
  
• Fanny packs.
  

• Allowing yourself to talk yourself into wearing shoes that pinch. Oh, they're not that bad, and I'm not walking that far... Yes. They are. And Yes. You are.

• Eating those mysterious styrofoam chips that come with pad thai. What are those things? And why do I taste one each time I order, thinking that maybe this time they'll taste like something other than crunchy air?

• And finally, I unrecommend waiting two weeks between blog posts. Sorry about that!
  

Beloved

The change of which I speak is the change from living life as a painful test to prove that you deserve to be loved, to living it as an unceasing “Yes” to the truth of that Belovedness. Put simply, life is a God-given opportunity to become who we are, to affirm our own true spiritual nature, claim our truth, appropriate and integrate the reality of our being, but, most of all, to say “Yes” to the One who calls us Beloved. The unfathomable mystery of God is that God is a Lover who wants to be loved. The one who created us is waiting for our response to the love that gives us our being. God not only says: “You are my Beloved.” God also asks: “Do you love me?” and offers countless chances to say “Yes.” That is the spiritual life: the chance to say “Yes” to inner truth. The spiritual life, thus understood, radically changes everything. Being born and growing up, leaving home and finding a career, being praised and being rejected, walking and resting, praying and playing, becoming ill and being healed—yes, living and dying—they all become expressions of the divine question: “Do you love me?” And at every point of the journey there is the choice to say “Yes” and the choice to say “No.”

-Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

Her Mother's Daughter

It takes on a whole 'nother level of "I'm not old enough for this," when your daughter asks you the same questions you can remember asking your own mother.


















Mom, when will I be old enough to go places by myself?

And to Think I Would Have Guessed it was "Spelling"

Jonathan's note to me today:

Dear Mom,
My favrit class in school is Jim.

Love,
Jonathan

And Hey, The Kiddos are Back in School

Chloe: Third Grade Jonathan: First Grade

(And while that bright spot on the top of Chloe's head may be evidence of a poorly planned photo and flash reflection, I'd like to think that it's simply her zeal for learning bursting forth from her eager brain on the first day of school. An actual lightbulb idea, perhaps.)

Two Terrible Pictures; Two Quintessential Moments

Since Matthew and I have yet to create our spy camera gear, I'm always a day late and dollar short when I see an event I'd like to capture on film and share with you. Here are two perfect examples of 1. why I love this city and 2. why I need to get on that spy gear project.


















A well-known piano store is just down the block from work and school. This week I walked the block behind the store and heard some intricate piano music streaming from the loading dock. I peered in and saw there in the dim light a loading dock worker taking a little break to share his music with the pallets, dumpsters, and me.


















That's right. Pink poodles. Two of them. They must have just had their hair did, because I've seen them before, and the pink has never been quite so brilliant.

One Woman's Trash is Another Man's... Trash.

He was youngish, mid-twenties, maybe, and carrying only a Libman broom that had obviously seen some use but still had the tag attached (that's how I knew it was Libman, you see, lest you think I spend my spare time learning to identify cleaning tool brands by sight). He approached me with a British accent and all politeness.

"Excuse me, but might you have some spare change? I'd like a coffee, and they tell me it's 90 cents." He nodded over toward the donut cart on the corner.

Something about the combination of his broom and his accent struck me. I pulled out my change purse and tipped the contents in his hands, smiled, said, "Enjoy your coffee, " and made my way to move on down the sidewalk as he sorted through the change.

Then I heard him call after me, "Oh, excuse me?" I turned and saw him following me.

"Your Lego," he said, and held out his hand, a small flash of red visible.

I held out my own hand, and he dropped the single brick into it.

Vandalism Evangelism

New York, Meet Michigan

They really are quite fond of you, NY. They might even Heart you.