something cool to check out

mom sent me this link the other day. i don't normally pass along this kind of stuff, but this was actually really cool. plus, it's to a beetle's song, so you can't go wrong.

and...this is not something "cool to check out" but rather something i just checked out myself in the mirror so it's on my mind. well, on my head actually. grey hair that is! it must be my fast-approaching birthday (it's saturday! hint, hint.) but i just noticed a spot in my hair that has WAY more grey hair then it used to! how distinguished. or something.

today i saw something i had never before seen

while stopped at a red light i saw a man in one car successfully sell a pair of shoes to a woman in another car.* gives the words "door-to-door salesman" a new meaning.

*okay, i actually didn't see the transaction completed. but the guy showed the woman some shoes (without either of them leaving their cars) and then when the light proceeded to turn red he motioned for her to follow him into the burger king parking lot where, i presume a transaction was perhaps completed. but still, that's savvy.

check it out

i don't really know what it was about fuzzy's post that made me want to read one day in the life of ivan denisovich. it's probably my on-again, off-again eternal search for things that put my life in perspective. but in any event, i got it from the library last week and finished it off this weekend.

excellent book. and it didn't depress me. just like watching fight club will make me feel better about the world, this made me feel better about people. i guess that was the author's intention so i'm fairly unoriginal in this. but it just all made sense to me. under such inhuman and abject conditions i felt that the characters behaved in very human way. well, i won't go into it here. but check it out.

i'm beginning to think i like russian literature. first the master and the margarita, then anna karenina, now the life of ivan denisovich. that can't be all the russian literature i've read though can it? hmmm.

humbling

one of my jobs at work is to bring various speakers into the school or an individual classroom. today i brought in the operation get smart team. they were 3 guys and 2 girls talking about the choices they made in life which led to the various crimes that they committed which eventually landed them in jail. these folks are serving time anywhere from six years to life for some really hard crimes.

i feel really fortunate to have met these individuals and to have heard their stories. certainly they have committed some heinious acts and that should not be forgotten. but they bear their souls every day, earnestly pouring out their faults and foibles for the betterment of the young people in our community, so that they don't make the same mistakes. i have not seen any better form of rehabilitation. and in the process it made me realize what a truly blessed life i live.

catching up on old photos

here's a few pictures from last weekend which we spent in georgia, if you remember.

this is what we spent most of our time doing, though. puzzles.

techno-rific weekend

even for the techno-idiots.

friday i got an early birthday present! thanks scoobs (with the guidance of fuzzy i hear). i've spent a lot of this weekend entering all my oh-so-important dates and my contacts' addresses and stuff. yaaa!

then, yesterday we realized office max was going out of buisiness (or at least the 2 stores in columbia that i went to are). so we bought a new phone (our old one was not liking to dial 3's and 6's, which had become a hassle). and we bought a new printer (our old one stopped working a few weeks ago and found out we could fix it but it would cost more than the worth of the machine). of course, in typical waldie and chris fashion we got home and the printer was not compatable with our operating system. boooo!

so today we've gotten an offer to be given another computer, a better one. for free. thanks bo. yaaaa!

the heat is off

i think.

for those of you who were worried that we would die of heat stroke in our apartment. i'm not 100% sure if they did anything or not though. it got cold last night so we opened the windows and it was managable in here. but it's fairly warm again today and the apartment is still cool-ish. at least cool enough to walk in the back room. so hopefully it'll stay this way.

also i had my 3rd or 4th visit with the somalis. i really like them and am so excited to be getting involved in their community. today i came over and there was a somali woman named halima there. she speaks english fluently (she's been in the us, it seems, for a while). so she was able to give me a little more information and i could tell her about myself. she was very sweet. she reminded me of sister thomasmari (for those who know her) who was always gentle in telling you what she thought you should be doing and how you should do it. so now all of a sudden i've realized that i've changed my times for tutoring in order that i can help another mom who was always working when i came over in the afternoons. but also i'm now trying to find someone to go with me to help the kids while i help the moms. don't really know how that happened but i guess i feel flattered that she was comfortable enough to pressure me into the change. i really don't mind.

africa to our apartment?

i'm in the worst mood ever and as such, i probably shouldn't be blogging. i've purposely not really talked to anyone today because i know i will just not be a nice person. i'm not exactly sure why i'm in a bad mood, though much of it, i guess, stems from the fact that our apartment is 90 degrees, despite running the AC full blast all day. how is that possible, you may ask. well, friends, for those who don't know, we live above the boiler room. so in winter when the heat is turned on, our floors are heated. normally not a big deal when it's like 40 degrees out. but it's been in the 80's for the past 2 days. but the heat is still on in our place. so i've been sweating all day and spitting nails. poor chris. my anger is doubled because we wanted to move out and they won't let us. so urgh to usc graduate and family housing!

we spent friday and saturday at my grandparents' house in rural georgia again. this time we didn't pick pecans, but we did pick turnips. i have, no joke, like 10 pounds of turnips (thanks chris!). if anyone in the columbia area wants some, please let me know. one can only eat so much turnips. anyways, the weekend was good, even though there were way too many people in a way too small house. my uncle, his daughter, her roommate, my 2 grandparents, 2 HUGE dogs and 3 cats were all there (plus me and chris of course). the house is only 4 rooms so it was tight. but it was good to see everyone and as always we had great (albeit way too much) food. plus we got legal advice and a recipe for the almost-famous oat balls from my uncle sammy. so yea, that was my weekend.

now i'll go back to wallowing in my ill mood.

four things

because fuzzy asked so nicely...

Four jobs I’ve had
Cheese Cutter
Trail Blazer
Program Implementer
Site Coordinator

Four movies I can watch over and over
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Little Women
13 Going On Thirty
Fight Club

Four TV shows I love to watch
I don’t have any TV reception so I don’t watch TV. However, we do have the following on DVD:
Fraggle Rock
Will and Grace
Dave Chappelle
Looney Toons


Four places I’ve been on vacation
Bermuda (May 1996)
Egypt (May 2000)
Monti Cristi, Dominican Republic (March 2004)
Okefenokee Swamp, Florida (April 2005)

Four favorite dishes
Ice Cream (my favorite flavor changes with my mood)
Pasta Bella’s (now non-existent) olive oil spread
Pretty much anything mom makes
Veggies and dill dip

Four websites I visit daily (I’m going to change this to weekly because the only thing I have time to visit daily is the GNC (data entry site for work)
CNN
Waldie Family Photos
Bill check
My blog (yes, I really do check it. I usually can’t remember what I last wrote.)

Four places I’d rather be
Sleeping late with Scoobs
Outside on a walk
Africa
At mom’s sitting down to dinner (or having hors d’oeuvres & cocktails

Four bloggers I’m tagging
Rachel (blog already would ya!)
Ben (because I want to read something other than complaining and politics on your blog)
Bo (it’s all in the family)
Theresa (because I never comment on your blog)

what does good friends, yummy food and a 10 year-old waitress have in common?

answer: greenwood, sc .

thanks, sean and cheryl for a fun saturday. you helped pull us out of our slump!

(*and i'm not kidding about the 10 year old waitress. she waited on us at tw boon's. she was the only server in the whole place and undoubtedly was the most precocious child i've ever met.)

my boy be's smart

he just was picked to be awarded the outstanding senior award in the sociology deparment at usc. smarty-pants!

happy birthday, waldie's world!

it all started a year ago today. wow, does time fly.

life plans, or something like that

i figured since i’ve been on this computer way too long trying (unsuccessfully) to get my printer to work, that i should at least maybe post a quick update.

it’s been a tough week in this reid household. but it looks like we’ve at least decided that we’re going to stay in columbia for the year. we’re going to start looking for apartments because we have to be out of ours by may 10th. chris will get a job and we’ll try out the 2 breadwinners thing for a little while as he looks at grad schools and such for fall 2007. oh, and we’re getting a dog. because i want one.

africa to columbia

i just spent my first afternoon with the somali mothers to whom i will be teaching english every wednesday until who knows when. it's a long story how i stumbled upon this opportunity. but let's just say they need help and i'm happy to provide it.... except, yikes! how does one go about teaching reading, writing and speaking of english to people who speak no english? i should mention for those who don't know it already, i don't speak mai mai (their language) either! so this will be quite an intersting process and i certainly will be learning just as much (if not more) from them as they will be learning from me.

i have a few (very few) thoughts on how i think i might approach this task. but i realize that my friends and family are all highly intelligent people with brilliant ideas and lots of unique experiences. i'd be open to any and all constructive suggestions anyone might have as to how i could help these women learn english. post any thoughts here. seriously, dudes. ideas. i need them.

friends are good distracters

i thought i'd follow up the previous sad post with a bit more upbeat post.



thanks, melissa, for visiting over the weekend, especially given that essentially you paid a lot of money to put up with 2 cranky and depressed friends.

this picture was taken at congaree national park, where we beat the rain and took a nice little hike on saturday. we also ate good food, played games with more friends and drove around charlotte.

updates

i know chris has emailed and/or called most of his close friends and, for the most part, the word is out. so i thought i'd just go ahead and put it out here as well to get the prayers going. chris's dad, david, had his regular two-month check-up on thursday and they found some not so good news. the nodes are larger and more numerous in his lungs and it has metastasized again to his liver. obviously this is bad news and, in fact, is worse "bad news" than we really thought we'd get. the good news is that (other than the cancer) david is in excellent health. tricia keeps him pumped up on vitamins, he's eating healthier, goes to work, and is continuing to live his life like normal. he's going to go on 2 more chemos (4 total i think) and will keep going every other week to get his treatments.

that's pretty much all the news we have at this point but we'll update more as we know more. thanks, all, for your continued support and prayers for david and the family.

my cousins rock

literally.



last night chris and i went out to augusta, georgia to soul bar to hear my counsin's band, a fir ju well play. as always, the show was excellent and i am always immensely impressed by their level of skill and talent.

an added bonus was seeing fellow atlanta-based performer anna kramer.


anna was also an excellent performer and i really enjoyed her music. a fir ju well played backup for a bunch of her tunes and was impressed (yet again) by their level of skill on someone else's music.

both bands will be touring up the east coast and then a fir ju well will head west. check out both of a fir ju well's websites for dates and locations.

we took a bunch of pictures. click here to see the set.

just in case you doubted us

you may remember our stories about our peace corps recruiter being kind of flaky and always just repeating the same story to us.

well, we just got another round of emails from her today. thought i'd share, you know, so you all would be as up to date as we are.


Original Message from recruiter:

>From: "Lorenzo, Bernadette"
>To: 'waldie', chris reid
>Subject: Peace Corps
>Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 13:22:33 -0500
>
>February 10, 2006
>
>Hi Waldie and Chris:
>
>I just wanted to let you know that I submitted your biodata to
Placement.
>I
>will let you know when I hear something. Thanks for your patience.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Bernadette Zayas Lorenzo


Chris's Response:

From: Christopher Reid
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 2:40 PM
To: Bernadette Lorenzo
Subject: RE: Peace Corps

Thanks so much. We look forward to seeing where the next steps take us.

Chris


Bernadette's Response to Chris's Response:

February 10, 2006

Hi Chris and Waldie:

Thanks for your patience. It is a longer and tougher process for
couples.

I'll let you know when I hear anything.

Thanks,

Bernadette
(404) 562-nnnn


...so, uh, there you go.

sean asked

"why does the organic milk i just bought have a "sell by" date of march
25th? if anything, i would have thought that things without weird
chemicals in them would have gone bad faster."

and i responded pretty much like: "i don't know. i've noticed that one too. i'll do a little digging to see what i can find."

so, sean and others, here's what i've found.

there's no straight answer, (when is there ever, right?) not even with organic (sigh). apparently, sean, we're not the only ones to notice this. when i googled "organic milk expiration date" a lot of good hits came up. there's all ends of the spectrum in this debate, ranging from these guys, who make some valid points but are a little too pro-business/conspiracy thinking for my palate, to this group of concerned parents, who explain that it's because organic milk is ultra-pasteurized (see the link to know more about what that means), which removes the microorganisms and spores that cause spoilage.

i just got up to see what brand of organic milk i bought this week (i vary depending on where i shop). i have organic valley, which is certainly one of the larger businesses selling organic foods. the expiration date is march 17th and it looks like the milk was shipped out of wisconsin, though i can't quite tell because it says on the box that it's processed and packaged at a plant stamped above but i think that info is in code.

this raises an important point, of which i am constantly amazed that i have to remind my nieve self--buyer beware (even with organic). even though you think you’re doing good by buying organic, sometimes you could still do better. i think the pro-business guys are right that you should really pay attention to where in the US your dairy products (and all products) are being shipped from because we all know that local is better in so many ways (and there’s no argument against that!).

so thanks, sean, for asking the question and forcing me to do some research. when i go to rosewood this weekend i’ll be sure to pick up all the milk boxes and take a closer look.

help save americorps nccc

most of you all know that in 2001 chris and i met while volunteering with americorps national civilian community corps. if you've ever spoken to either one of us about our year of service you'll know that it was one of the most rewarding, life-altering experiences we've ever had the prilige of having (an not just because we met each other;).

well, in an effort to cut down the federal budget, president bush is threatening to completely shut down the nccc program. it really doesn't look good, judging from the comments today by the chairman of the board and the ceo of the corporation for national service. they just basically said that they'd like enough money to shut down the programs properly.

in my opinion (and the opinion of countless others) that's just simply not good enough. please sign a petition to help save the nccc program. even better, send a personal letter to your senator or congress person.

here were my comments about why i think americorps nccc is worth saving:
AmeriCorps*NCCC is a program with a rich history steeped in dedicated, quality service toward the American public. Stemming from the Civilian Conservation Corps, which provided valuable jobs to needy & able Americans in the 30’s & 40’s as well as laying down the foundation for much of our nation’s valuable natural infrastructures, the NCCC has lived up to its legacy by providing a myriad of invaluable services to Americans in every corner of our country. NCCC members have provided services that range from disaster relief in 2001 to victims of the attacks on NY and DC and in 2005 to victims of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, to helping build houses for the needy, to assisting low-income children achieve greater academic success. I implore you to maintain the funding of AmeriCorps*NCCC and allow future generations to continue delivering this valuable service to our fellow countrymen in need.