Thursday, November 1, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Pictures of puppies!
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Puppies!
Today while on the way to drywalling a house down the street a guy stopped us (Arthur, Rebecca, Danielle, and i) and asked us if we wanted any puppies.
In my mind i was thinking,
And then, after taking a look, of course we took them home with us and built them a pen and i carved out a little doggy bed out of a cardboard box filled with towels. They were so cute. The little guy i carried home was shaking the whole way. i think they were cold, they looked so scared. i tried to coddle the little guy to keep him warm and pet him so that he would know he was loved, but he still shook and shook and shook.
After listening to an episode of This American Life this weekend about an adopted Romanian child that grew up alone with no human contact except for when he was fed, and seeing a shaking, scared, cold puppy, i'm beginning to think that there's actually some truth to all that bonding talk.
Arthur, Danielle, and Rebecca took them to the SPCA, but i got a few pictures. i got them developed pretty much immediately afterwards so i'm hoping to put some up tomorrow so that you can see just how cute those things are.
In other news, i started construction on my very own bicycle today. For $25 dollars you can build a bike out of recycled parts at a warehouse shop called Plan B. i hope to have that finished soon. i can take all sorts of fun trips once i have a bike!
Adventures await!
In my mind i was thinking,
Oh yeah i want puppies! But i must be careful, otherwise i will be suckered into making bad decisions. i dont have the money or the time or the energy to raise one dog, much less 4 of them. Well, maybe i'll just take a look...
And then, after taking a look, of course we took them home with us and built them a pen and i carved out a little doggy bed out of a cardboard box filled with towels. They were so cute. The little guy i carried home was shaking the whole way. i think they were cold, they looked so scared. i tried to coddle the little guy to keep him warm and pet him so that he would know he was loved, but he still shook and shook and shook.
After listening to an episode of This American Life this weekend about an adopted Romanian child that grew up alone with no human contact except for when he was fed, and seeing a shaking, scared, cold puppy, i'm beginning to think that there's actually some truth to all that bonding talk.
Arthur, Danielle, and Rebecca took them to the SPCA, but i got a few pictures. i got them developed pretty much immediately afterwards so i'm hoping to put some up tomorrow so that you can see just how cute those things are.
In other news, i started construction on my very own bicycle today. For $25 dollars you can build a bike out of recycled parts at a warehouse shop called Plan B. i hope to have that finished soon. i can take all sorts of fun trips once i have a bike!
Adventures await!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Stories from New Orleans.
Living and spending time in New Orleans has inevitably put my in contact with lots of different people and spending time in the Quarter means that you will have people come up to you asking for money.
i'm undergoing a personal war trying to decide how i feel about giving money to people who ask for it on the streets. In my heart there's a mixture of compassion and complete mistrust, so which do i listen to, and what is right in the situation? i'm still figuring that out. i think i'd rather give the benefit of the doubt and make a mistake than allow my heart to close up to people that need help, but the lines here are way more blurry to me than that.
Well, here's two stories i do have. Now that i think about it, they are very supportive of giving people money, but i'll tell them and let you think through them. This probably fits in with the idea that the bad stories are usually the most noticeable...
The first week i was here in New Orleans our team went out to dinner to get to know each other better. After a nice dinner of blackened catfish (i think my first time eating catfish), we stopped by an ice cream shop and sat outside enjoying it. While we were sitting in black chairs with twisty metalwork (that's an apt description of the chairs i think) around a small round table a man walked up to us and asked for change for something. Change isnt a big deal, i might've actually given him some change, but i didnt and neither did anyone on my team. So he asked us, "Do you even have change?" i'm assuming (which can be dangerous) that none of us had any change because some people answered his question and as Christians, we try not to lie. The guy ended up slapping a penny on our table and saying, "i feel bad for people without any change on them. In fact, i feel so sorry i'm going to give you a penny so that you can have change."
It took a few minutes for that to sink in, but after five or so minutes. i felt so violated. i didnt have change and by that point i'm glad i didnt have any to give him. After thinking so much about the concept of "boundaries" i think that man could not handle us not having change to give him, and probably couldnt accept a no from us either. He probably thought we were lying to him, i can see that side of the argument, but that was one of the meanest, scathing comments i've heard from someone. i still have the penny, it's sittiing on my mirror on my dresser. i think i'm going to hand out pennies to people when i feel guilted into something.
The second story is similar. When we were waiting around to go into Jackson Square for a candlelight vigil for the second year anniversary of Katrina a guy came up to the girls on a bike and handed them a flower. He obviously expected money and then he said, "five dollars to help the homeless get a hot dog?" Ok, i can see that. $5 sounds expensive for just a hot dog, but yeah, $5 for a meal sounds resonable. They gave him some money and it wasnt much. So he took the flower away from them and gave them a less impressive one, it was not red but white and looked fairly wilted.
That seems less mean to me, and more understandable than the other guy, but something still rubs me the wrong way with that and i havent figured out exactly what it is yet. It seems disingenuous (?) Is that the right word? It seems deceiving or devious or something like that.
i'm undergoing a personal war trying to decide how i feel about giving money to people who ask for it on the streets. In my heart there's a mixture of compassion and complete mistrust, so which do i listen to, and what is right in the situation? i'm still figuring that out. i think i'd rather give the benefit of the doubt and make a mistake than allow my heart to close up to people that need help, but the lines here are way more blurry to me than that.
Well, here's two stories i do have. Now that i think about it, they are very supportive of giving people money, but i'll tell them and let you think through them. This probably fits in with the idea that the bad stories are usually the most noticeable...
The first week i was here in New Orleans our team went out to dinner to get to know each other better. After a nice dinner of blackened catfish (i think my first time eating catfish), we stopped by an ice cream shop and sat outside enjoying it. While we were sitting in black chairs with twisty metalwork (that's an apt description of the chairs i think) around a small round table a man walked up to us and asked for change for something. Change isnt a big deal, i might've actually given him some change, but i didnt and neither did anyone on my team. So he asked us, "Do you even have change?" i'm assuming (which can be dangerous) that none of us had any change because some people answered his question and as Christians, we try not to lie. The guy ended up slapping a penny on our table and saying, "i feel bad for people without any change on them. In fact, i feel so sorry i'm going to give you a penny so that you can have change."
It took a few minutes for that to sink in, but after five or so minutes. i felt so violated. i didnt have change and by that point i'm glad i didnt have any to give him. After thinking so much about the concept of "boundaries" i think that man could not handle us not having change to give him, and probably couldnt accept a no from us either. He probably thought we were lying to him, i can see that side of the argument, but that was one of the meanest, scathing comments i've heard from someone. i still have the penny, it's sittiing on my mirror on my dresser. i think i'm going to hand out pennies to people when i feel guilted into something.
The second story is similar. When we were waiting around to go into Jackson Square for a candlelight vigil for the second year anniversary of Katrina a guy came up to the girls on a bike and handed them a flower. He obviously expected money and then he said, "five dollars to help the homeless get a hot dog?" Ok, i can see that. $5 sounds expensive for just a hot dog, but yeah, $5 for a meal sounds resonable. They gave him some money and it wasnt much. So he took the flower away from them and gave them a less impressive one, it was not red but white and looked fairly wilted.
That seems less mean to me, and more understandable than the other guy, but something still rubs me the wrong way with that and i havent figured out exactly what it is yet. It seems disingenuous (?) Is that the right word? It seems deceiving or devious or something like that.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
maria full of grace
Here's my second attempt at some art. i'm still trying to figure out how to use those complicated photo editing programs.
And now for something completely different...
Today i got to meet some magicians (illusionists?) and we had dinner together. And of course, during dinner, Ken had to mention that i juggled. After sharing a little bit of my spiel, i closed with this great one-liner, "i just like to manipulate things."
That got all the grief you can imagine a statement like that getting. i eventually found myself quoting Star Wars, waving my hand around the table saying, "You will buy me dinner."
Sorry i havent been posting as regularly. There's plenty to post about, but i've been lazy. Though i will say that having a computer desk makes all the difference in the world. i was much less inclined to use the computer when it involved being hunched over on my floor.
Til the next one, soak it in and see what you think.
And now for something completely different...
Today i got to meet some magicians (illusionists?) and we had dinner together. And of course, during dinner, Ken had to mention that i juggled. After sharing a little bit of my spiel, i closed with this great one-liner, "i just like to manipulate things."
That got all the grief you can imagine a statement like that getting. i eventually found myself quoting Star Wars, waving my hand around the table saying, "You will buy me dinner."
Sorry i havent been posting as regularly. There's plenty to post about, but i've been lazy. Though i will say that having a computer desk makes all the difference in the world. i was much less inclined to use the computer when it involved being hunched over on my floor.
Til the next one, soak it in and see what you think.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Brad Pitt makes a crazy claim!
Brad Pitt, in an article on the New Orleans Times-Picayune, claimed that in New Orleans he and Angelina,
can almost live a normal life hereWow. What does this say about the city if super-star celebrities like them can almost find normalcy here?
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