I love the sound of power tools in the morning

This weekend we installed hardwood flooring in the livingroom upstairs. It took 16 hours. I'm so glad it's (mostly) done. My tushie hurts, among other things.

I got to learn how to use the table saw. I'm quite good at it, actually(beaming with pride). All ten digits left.

Good Intentions

From the May/June 2006 issue of MCC's A Common Place Magazine:

"While speaking out on faith-based concerns about public policy can be a powerful means of Christian witness, only 5 percent of Americans communicate with their representatives in government, according to the MCC Washington Office. A mere 1 percent contact their representatives on matters beyond self-interest to focus on the hurting people of the world.

Why do we so often stop short of actually doing something instead of just talking about it?

dry rustling

thousands of seed pods blowing down the street
sound like rain sticks
ironic
considering the 32 C temperature and the 25% humidity

never enough hours

This week I have been too busy commenting on other people's blogs to write anything for my own.

Also, my garden cultivator fork keeps breaking. Curses!

Rare Gems

I paid 50 cents each for these albums at a garage sale a little while ago. I haven't listened to them yet. I haven't even taken the records out to see if they're in one piece. The cover art alone was worth the price.


includes such hits as 'Schnitzelbank' and 'Minneapolis Polka'!


ever heard 'Moonlight on the Ganges' played on a banjo?

Everyone should have to take the bus sometimes

I had two experiences this past week that gave me further insight into the experience of being homeless.

On Sunday, due to poor, last minute planning, I found myself in downtown Edmonton, all my stuff in two plastic grocery bags, without any place to go for 6 hours. I passed the time in the same ways many people on the street do: I sunned myself on the stairs at Winston Churchill Square until the library opened, then read for a while, walked 14 blocks to where I would be spending the night, waited on the front stoop, had to walk 2 blocks to use the pay phone, layed on the grass in a park and looked at the sky, needed to use the bathroom but knew there was no place nearby that would let me, and took shelter from the rain under an awning while I waited for someone to come and unlock the door to my temporary home for the night.

Tuesday night I had the pleasure of taking an overnight Greyhound route for 8 1/2 hours. Uncomfortable seats that made me sneeze, two other passengers hacking and coughing, and no warm jacket made it difficult to sleep. I did, however, catch a few winks sprawled out across the seats at the Calgary bus depot between midnight and 1 am. It felt good to stretch out. I made a pillow of my bag of clothes, tucked my glasses in my purse, and tucked that under my arm, hoping that would dissuade anyone from trying to rummage through it. Everytime some baggage handlers walked past, my eyes opened halfway. My mind never let me fall all the way asleep. I thought about how those men in the dirty jumpsuits saw me. Did they think I was another transient, some young runaway? Could they tell I was on my way to a stable and loving home?

When I unlocked my own door at 4:30 am and entered my own life again, it felt like waking up from a dream.

I think everyone should have to ride the bus sometimes. It reminds us that there are other people around us, living their lives, thinking, feeling, having good days and bad days.

It has always surprised me how horrified people are when I suggest they ride the bus. I have come to the conclusion that it bothers them because it is too real. It's not like on TV, where everyone is beautiful, or the mall where everything is shiny and new. Public transit is full of old ladies, fat people, kids with snotty noses, young men with cerebral palsey, tired single moms and immigrants speaking other languages. They don't want to be reminded the world is not sanitized and sparkling clean. They feel much more comfortable safely behind the windows of their car, in their little bubble with the top 40 station drowning out all critical thought.

I suggest that if you ride the bus once in a while, it might reconnect you with the community you live in, maybe help you to stop looking at yourself against the backdrop of Old Navy Commercials and be content with what you have and who you are right now.

going to the garden to eat worms

Two months of unemployed bliss and counting. I wish I could call up Dilbert to go for beers and wallow in self-pity together.

Hey kid, wanna get morally high?

I want to put this on a t-shirt.

Check out the Colbert Report clip called "drug fuelled sex crime" on Comedy Central

technology challenged

I have finally figured out how to upload something to my web space and then link to it from blogger. This a week after I actually composed the post I wanted to link with. Now I can't figure out how to change the date of the post so it will appear at the top of my blog. You better just click on the first entry for April 24th (rethinking the church as lobby group), 'cause it's new.

Another Weekend Away

I always have the best of intentions to continue posting when I'm away from home. It might happen some day.

Last Friday I helped out at the annual fundraising banquet for my old job. Since it was just 2 weeks after the last community dinner that we hosted for the inner city, some contrasts stood out for me stronger than usual.

When serving dinner to the clients, they file in and sit at long rows of plain tables. We serve them homestyle food on styrofoam plates with plastic cutlery. If they're lucky, there will be music provided by volunteers singing over the small PA system.

At the fundraising dinner, our guests are seated at elegant tables with centrepieces, silverware and cloth napkins. They are served a suptuous buffet, equal to a wedding dinner, and then move in to an auditorium for a program including guest musicians.

I know that there is good reason for some of these differences. There are more community dinners than fundraisers. We have to serve the dinners in a location the clients can walk to. Far more people attend these dinners than the fundraiser. We don't intentionally treat the clients with less care than the donors, do we?

I have never been quite comfortable with the way we (meaning non-profits) have to court and pamper donors. Maybe I'd feel better about it if it weren't for the biggest contrast I encountered that evening: the behavior of the guests. At a holiday meal in the inner city, for the most part, the people take their hats off during the prayer, sit where you tell them, help to clean up and thank everyone sincerely for the delicious meal on the way out. Many new volunteers will remark that people behaved much better than they expected.

At the fundraising banquet, people complained audibly when the doors were opened 3 minutes late, were impatient with the servers while being seated, didn't listen to instructions and demanded to be waited upon.

Maybe it's just my expectations, that I assume people with a lot more going for them, who have chosen to be generous and support a worthy cause would be more contented, cheerful and polite than those who are struggling with addictions, pain, abuse and poverty.

We get so used to being pampered in our society that we think it is owed to us. I'm sure my behavior is often shameful in public as well. I pray that God will change me into a grateful person.