Misnomer

'For Chloe, it should be called, "Trainwork."

So Clever

Diesel's new ad campaign is posted all over the city.
I love it.

Come Now, Supermarket

There's no need for commentary on the moral character of your produce.

So Proud

Irony

Dear Next Door Neighbor

Dear Next Door Neighbor,
It was pleasant enough to meet you the few brief times that we've crossed paths, and I'm sure you're a lovely person all around. You're not loud, and you've never complained about the occasional times that Jonathan may scream like a girl at 6:00 in the morning while he plays Wii.

However.

Ground beef sauteed with onions mixed with patchouli and pot is a smell that I never, ever need to smell again.

Kindly,
5A1

The New Kid

I began a new job this week. Starting a new job always leaves me a little off balance, and I've started more than my fair share of new jobs (One of these days I'll outline them all for you. It's a full time job to list them, anyway). For me, the start is always mix of thrill and trepidation, anticipation and apprehension. Who wants to be The New Kid, anyway? It's much nicer to be The One on the Inside. It's a challenge to enter into a new environment, balancing the appropriate amount of humility to show I'm not a jackass know-it-all (when I sure as heck don't know it all) with the poise to instill confidence that I can do the job I was hired to do. My intuition is in full gear--not only do I need to learn the basic facts of the new position, but I've also got to quickly recognize the more subtle things: What's the corporate culture? Who are the formal, and sometimes more importantly, informal leaders? If the boss' door is shut, does that mean stay away or c'mon in, just knock first? And where in the world is the bathroom?

I'm not turning my first week on the job into some grand allegory. I'm just saying it's a challenge on a lot of levels, and exhausting in a unique way that comes back with each new position. Maybe one of these days I should stop starting.

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.

School Shoes are Just Too... Not Crocs!

That was a quote from Jonathan as I helped him see that, indeed, his new school shoes were not too small, nor too big, too wide, too black, too high. Eventually he gave up and got to the heart of the matter - School shoes are not Crocs. Especially not cool blue Transformers Optimus Prime Crocs. Sorry, buddy, Crocs are not part of the uniform schedule. I know. I'm the one who enforces it...

It's back to that time of year for me-- the time when all thoughts and energy go toward getting the school back on its feet for the new year. Not that it ever was off its feet, but there are a few weeks in the summer when we all take a deep breath, step back, and consider some bigger picture things for a while. That time is gone now, and our breaths come quick and shallow as detail after detail demands attention. The next 4 weeks or so are my equivalent to an H&R Block accountant's tax season.

So I'm waving goodbye to what has been a good summer, already sighing over the pictures and saying, "Remember when we...?"




















































































































































PS- When God closes a summer, he opens a Street Sweets truck down the block from work... good grief. Fill your own croissants? C'mon.

Sure Do Wish Someone Would Have Told Me Earlier

Seriously. Vince here tells me that if I stop having boring tuna, I'll stop having a boring life!

Watch this one for a little bit... then move on to the remix for some real excitement.

And he does it all with straight face. Love it.

West Michigan Magic (aka Blonde Ambition)

Yes, we will be blonde (or nearly so--variations on a theme, you see) when we are 80. It's West Michigan magic.

L to R: Michelle, Melissa, Erin, Michelle, Natalie, Holly, Me (Tina, you were definitely missed)

Warning: Objects In Photo are Less Mature than They Appear

This first pic was snapped at Chuck E Cheese last night (Jonathan does not consider a birthday officially celebrated without a visit). It's me with my younger siblings. When in the world did we start looking so grown up? I remember when these two put a stuffed football in the seat of their pants so that it wouldn't hurt when they were spanked.

And I do believe Angela and I have been living in the same house for a few days too many... we showed up for our Chuck E night on the town in almost the same dress.