Red Kettle

First off, yes it has been awhile since I have written anything substantial here… now will not be one of those times…

Secondly, I have a paper due in 16 hours and counting so of course, here I am blogging…

Third- we booked our airline tickets to Vancouver for July 17th! We are headed up to beautiful BC to see a good friend get hitched to someone we know from an entirely different context. Should be fun.

And lastly, I want to tell you to see the documentary “the 11th hour”, yes that is the one with Leonardo DiCaprio narrating, it is still worth see, let me know what you think.

finally, it’s back.

I would like to introduce you to (right to left) Pepper and Jasmine Rice.

For the last six months we have been attending a Greek Orthodox church in Columbia, Missouri. After much time, prayer, and debate, we have decided to remain protestant and attend a local protestant church, but will also attend the Orthodox church occasionally to partake in the liturgy and the community. It has been a tough decision, one I have been putting off making, but now that it has been made I feel I can enjoy both church structures and my place within them.

Here are a few things I have grown to appreciate in the Orthodox tradition and I believe could benefit the protestant tradition:
- repeatedly making the sign of the Cross
- the church calendar: various seasons of fasting, feasting, and liturgy
- the beauty of icons; icons as revelation
-prominence of the sacraments

In case you are curious why I have decided not to convert to Orthodoxy here are a few of my reasons:
-women are not allowed in the Liturgical clergy
-rejects Eucharistic hospitality
-views on homosexuality
-infallibility of tradition
-my heritage is protestant

Norman Finkelstein on the “Not-so-New New Anti-Semitism” and Shlomo Ben Ami on Terror, Torture, and Peace

Nate and I stayed up the other night listening to this debate on Democracy Now online.   Norman Finkelstein was brillant.

I feel like I have written very little about the summer and it’s almost over, although it doesn’t feel like it here.
We’ve been experiencing a bit of a heat wave the past few weeks. The average temperature is 100 degrees and the heat index is about 107. Of course it isn’t very pleasant, but we are fortunate to have central air. I really feel for those living in the heat.

I decided to try to do something constructive with the heat. Last week I started building a solar oven for fun. After a bit of trial and error, my solar oven was complete, and to my surprise, works great. It’s been so wonderful to cook with the sun’s heat which is easy and free. Here are some photos of some of the dishes I’ve made. The local news is coming out this week to do a small story on the oven. I’ll see if I can youtube it.

Following solar cooking, my next project is making biodiesel. We recently bought a 2006 diesel Volkswagen Jetta, which inspired me to begin studying biodiesel and promising myself and others to be making it by the fall.

But all of this will have to wait a few days, because TODAY we are going on a mini vacation. We debated about where to go… Colorado? Vancouver? New York?… but soon realized we didn’t have a lot of time and money to invest in our trip… so we decided to go to a B&B in Rocheport, Missouri. What is Rocheport you may ask? Well Rocheport is a tiny town 15 miles from our house and is on the top ten cool small towns to visit in the USA. I recently began discovering small towns in Missouri. A couple weeks ago I started a project photographing small towns in Missouri. Here are a few from the project.

I just realized I forgot to write about my night with rosie thomas.  For those of you who know me well, know that I simply adore rosie thomas and her music.  Until a few weeks ago, I had yet to see her in concert.  So a couple of weeks ago I hopped in the car and headed down to a tiny town called bushnell, illinois, to meet up with some college friends and brother chris, at the annual c-stone festival and see rosie.  The show was so beautiful and funny.  I was in a complete state of solace and then rosie would talk and I would almost pee my pants laughing.  She has a unique singing voice as everyone knows, but her speaking voice is sooo unique.  High-pitched, little girl unique.  Toward the end of her show, she mentioned leaving time for “Sheila” to appear.  Everyone anticipated meeting this Sheila because Rosie was so excited about it.  So at the encore, out walked “Sheila” who in fact was rosie in a neck caste and thick glasses.  So “Sheila/rosie” did this sort of SNL stand up session about marrying herself and peeing in the pond.  It was hilarious.  Who knew?!

Michael Moore,  I love you.

Over the weekend Nathan cracked the crown on his front tooth. We kind of expected it, after it was cracked 6 months ago and the dentist glued it back in with the disclaimer, “I don’t know how long this will last.” Since we live in the USA, the land of luxury, except when it comes to healthcare , we kind of said out loud, “damn-it”, and quickly began searching for clinics who serve our kind. I found one and we even spoke to a dentist who told us to call Tuesday morning at 8am, to see if they could slide us in for an appointment. The dentist stressed calling at 8 am, not 8:20 am. So at 8:03 am, nathan dials and waits in line on the phone until 8:20 am, only to be told they have filled up for the day and to try again calling tomorrow at 8 am. This is kind of humourous to me. I feel like we are dialing a radio show and trying to win a visit to the affordable dentist clinic. My dad has discovered an interesting way to service his teeth. His family is from Texas, so each year when he goes to visit his parents, he also makes a trip down to Mexico, to get his teeth serviced at an affordable price. Perhaps we should make our way down to Mexico.

To add to the drama this morning, was a 3 page single-spaced love/hate letter Nathan found on the roadside while walking the dog. Nathan who obviously has better things to do decided to take it home and throw it away. I on the other hand, thought it was important to learn what is going on in the world. Three pages of drama, and high school drama at that. What was I thinking? I can positively say, I am happy to be finished with high school drama. And Taylor, if you are reading this, I wouldn’t recommend getting back together with Hillary anytime soon.

Six more days of living with the sheep. Did I ever mention we live near a golf course? Right now they must be having a mad party, because all I hear is this thump-thump music and occasional screeching tires. Everyday when I’m walking the dog down the road I am amazed by how many beer bottles are tossed out of moving cars that drive on our road each night. MADD should set up shop on our road, seriously.

So yes, we are closing on our house this Thursday. How exciting and sad to say see ya later to the sheep and country roads. But the pavement is calling. I bought an old 1970 Schwinn Bike last week, to ride around our new town. I also got a build-yer-own pond kit to start digging in the new backyard. [The pond dream is going to happen.] I whole-heartedly promised the sheep we’ll visit; and yet they didn’t really seem to mind.