Celebrate Good Times

Tori graduated this last Sunday... so we celebrated. I got to hang out with her parents and brother and aunt and fiance all evening. After the last ceremony for Whitworth College graduates, we all went to Nikos, a wonderful Greek restaurant here in Spokane. We were ushered into a private room and the only menu we were given was the 20 page wine list. So we got some wine. The deal was they were just going to start bringing us food so we could sit back and enjoy each others' company. Let me tell you, that was the most exciting meal I have ever participated in. It lasted about 3 hours and Ryan, our friendly waiter, kept coming back with more dishes of food. We cheered for him each time. At one point he brought a Sockeye Salmon fillet on a silver platter. What?! Not to mention the authentic tzatziki sauce and the salad with a deliciously sweet balsamic dressing and the lamb. We ended up taking bags of food with us when we left. We also ordered 3 different types of wine throughout the evening, one from La Rioja, the wine region of Spain. Our entertainment was trying to drop the wine cork so it would stand on it's end. John, Tori's brother, got 11 in a row. We were cheering for him the whole way. After dinner, we went to the hotel where Tori's family was staying and down to the bar there to get some Mac & Jack's. It is a great ale brewed in Western Washington. Basically, by the end of the night most of us were a little tipsy and we were all very glad that we had spent that time together celebrating Tori's accomplishments. Congrats Tori and thanks for letting me share these great times with you.

I went to a roller skating rink tonight

I was there for at least 3 hours with some kids that I work with. It was interesting to see kids from the age of 6 up through high school singing along with the cuss words in the songs that were being played. And then there were the pre-adolescent girls shaking their little pre-adolescent booties. It made me sad to see these young people act in ways that seemed beyond their age. I was a little shocked at the lack of innocence I saw.

Then there were the times when the kids I brought helped out the really small ones who got knocked down on the rink. Unexpected tenderness and caring is a much better surprise. All in all, it was a good night. And that was unexpected, too.

Moving

There isn't very much furniture in the common areas of our house anymore. Of course I knew this day was coming, but it still managed to surprise me a bit. It got me thinking about how soon we will all be moved out and going our separate ways. It has been great with my housemates and having time to think about my life while living in Spokane. I still don't have much figured out. I have a lot of room to make choices about my future. It seems like a blank slate and I am being challenged to not be afraid about what could be drawn there. People are capable of so much more than they give themselves credit for. I've worked for months at a facility that I was afraid to apply to because the kids have serious problems. I rode my bike across Northern Spain in a month. I planned a fun-filled bridal shower when I had never been to one. So in a couple weeks I'll have to start the job search again and move back to California to start another chapter of my life. It's not going to be anything I can't handle. Moving out and moving on. Further up and further in.

Devolution

According to dictionary.com:
dev·o·lu·tion
–noun
the transfer of power or authority from a central government to a local government.



A little over a year ago I went to Northern Ireland on a study program. It was called Religion, Peace, and Conflict. We had studied the complicated history of Northern Ireland and learned about it's ambiguous position in the United Kingdom before we left the states so that when we got there we could ask the people involved about their past experiences and hopes for the future. One day we went to Stormont, the beautiful parliament building that was sitting unused because the leaders of the different political parties could not stand to be in the same building. We talked with representatives from the four major parties for what seemed like the whole day. The DUP rep said that they would probably never become a united Ireland and it would take a long time to trust Sinn Fein. The Sinn Fein rep said he saw Northern Ireland being united with the Republic of Ireland during his lifetime. After hearing all sides of the story I was left with a feeling of hopelessness. How could these parties ever come to a point of understanding and cooperation?

Today I saw this in the news: Historic return for NI Assembly. Wow.

Lament of a Flooded Bedroom

We share a wall, the laundry room and I
Generally, he's the noisy sort of neighbor
But we manage to live side by side.
Then one day, his cup runneth over.
With a fan and some towels it took me 5 days to dry.
Next time, it was the pipe for the sprinkler
And it took me 10 hours to notice this time.
A spot on the carpet, a shade of brown deeper.
Now in the corner abandoned, as if I wanted to hide
And they've set up camp in the living room, which is higher.

Les Mis

I am currently working my way through the unabridged version of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. I'm not even halfway through it on page 513, but it has been an enjoyable read so far. It has taken me about a month and a half to get this far and I think part of that has to do with how daunting it can be to hold a book that is over a thousand pages long. A few days ago at work a kid asked me what the book was like. I explained to him what a geometric tangent was (a line that is connected to another line but shoots off in it's own direction) and then said this book was full of tangents. He laughed. It was particularly hard getting through a 45 page section on the battle of Waterloo where the only relevant part was a short interaction between characters on the last page. Still, I am enjoying getting to know the characters and the themes of redemption and the struggle to figure out what is right have been very interesting.

To help me get into the spirit a little more I took a couple quizzes. If you are familiar with the story from the book or the musical you might enjoy finding out which major and minor characters you resemble. I am like Jean Valjean and Sister Simplice. I wasn't even going for all the religious answers.