Yee Haw!

After tomorrow I am officially on Spring Break!!! Wheaton has, what are called, "quad" classes. They are only 1/2 of a semester and only worth 2 credits. However, the professor seemed to cram 4 credits worth of work into 2 credits and half of the time. It was a very interesting class, but I'm glad it's over. I turned my research paper in on Tuesday, got my reading done for class tomorrow, so tonight I start Spring Break a little early. In good ol' fashion spring break style, I plan on going hog wild. But by "hog wild", I mean reading something other than text books. And by "something other than text books", I of course mean, Bill Bryson. I started his travel log on Australia, entitled "In a Sunburned Country," some time ago and have been dying to pick it up again.

Though I will unwind here for a couple of days, I will spend the majority of my Spring Break working ahead. Man, grad school is a lot of work. Abe's spring break, unfortunately, doesn't coincide with mine. So the plan is to leave her behind, head to my folks' house, pick up my little dog, and head for my grandmother's farm. I'm going to spend a few days in silence. The city has been smothering me and it's time for a break. I have a lot of school work to do, so the solitude should prove to help with productivity as well. I don't think grad school spring break is quite the same as how it was in undergrad.

Why am I such a girl?

Last semester we had a little mouse problem in our apartment. Our bedroom ceiling has dropped tile and a little mouse had made his home there. Brandon and I could hear the mouse scurrying around above our heads while we tried to sleep. The maintenance people came and put a sticky trap up in the ceiling. The mouse got caught within a few days. I haven't heard or seen any signs of a mouse since. Until tonight.

I went to get a piece of candy out of this bowl that I keep sweet things in. One of those things is chocolate. I ran across this piece of candy (see picture, I apologize for the blur). This piece of candy had obviously served as a delicious meal for one of my furry friends. So, now I know that Brandon and I are not the only occupants of our apartment. Brandon is working tonight so I have to make the brave trek from our study to our bedroom by myself. This requires me walking through the kitchen where I am positive I heard the mouse. I really don't consider myself high maintenance or girlie......but apparently I am!

Saturday

I remember when weekends were relaxing. Today I spent 12 hours studying and writing for school. That includes a 6 1/2 hour stint at Caribou. I made some good headway on a paper I'm writing and took a big bite out of some reading that I have to do for a colloquium on this coming Friday. My brain was fried by the time I got back to the apartment tonight.

Abbey, sans husband, set off on adventures all over the city. This afternoon, she and one of her RA's took a drive to find a Gap Outlet. Not a big deal? Well, it's one of maybe 5 times that she's driven in the city thus far and she was happy to report tonight that she also did a fine job of parallel parking. If you think the parking isn't a big deal, then you've never heard the story of how our car got towed because she absolutely refused to parallel park it. Tonight she took off on a jaunt to a local movie theater with her coworker. They saw "Music and Lyrics," a Hugh Grant flick. I'm glad I had schoolwork to do.

We haven't had a lot of time together recently. So given a little time together tonight, we decided to make the most. She handed it to me in a rousing game of dice then we retired to watching Arrested Development: Season I. That show brings back a lot of good memories... our little bungalow, good friends, a friendly city, and our beloved Lucille 3 (if you ever wondered how Lucy got her name, the answer is found by watching AD).

It's odd how so many memories are tied to something as trivial as a canceled television show. Odd, but nice.

Where have we been?

Sorry for the silence from our end. It is pretty sad that our last post was 12 days ago. We have both been busy from the minute we start our days until we fall into bed at night. I have been meaning to post for a couple of days now, but every time I sit down to write I draw a complete blank. The busyness of my life has caused me to lack all capability of forming coherent sentences.
Last weekend we left town and went to Brandon's parents' house. We got to spend time with Brandon's family, celebrate our nephew's 1st birthday, and see Lucy! It was a really fun weekend for us. Here is a picture of the birthday boy as he eats his cake!

Abe's celebrity look-alikes

http://www.myheritage.com

She's pretty hot, but she's no Scarlett Johansson.

My celebrity look-alikes

http://www.myheritage.com

At least I look more like Scarlett Johansson than Elton John.

Brrrrr!

This is how I walked home tonight from work. It's around -10 degrees with a wind chill of around -30. A bit brisk, but I made the half-mile walk alright. I only had one problem...my eyelashes kept freezing together.

Tonight at work I saw this homeless lady. I see her most every night I work. She's doubtlessly mentally unhealthy. And tonight, I'm sure, she'll be lucky if she lives to see the morning.

This is a hard city to live in. There is no end to the need. To think of doing anything is all at once, overwhelming and seemingly useless. When I was oriented at this job, I was warned that homeless people would try to sneak into the building. I thought about what I would do tonight if she tried to sneak in. What would I do?

Surrounded by the immensity and ever-present need of homelessness makes it so easy to grow cynical. It's so easy to slip into the mindset that these people can help themselves. Why worry, they've made their bed, let them sleep in it. If you don't want to be homeless quit using drugs. If you don't want to be cold tonight, try staying on your prescribed meds. If you don't want to sleep in an alley rolled up in carpet padding, go to a homeless shelter. But that attitude is just wrong, it's just so wrong.

The fact of the matter is that I deserve to be out there. Had it not been for socio-economic, geo-political, what-ever accident I could be out there in the full, deadly reality that I can't help myself up when I'm 66 feet below the bottom rung! It doesn't matter how or who got me here... I AM HERE. The gulf between my fingers and that bottom rung is too great, and it's growing each day. And, she is there. Helpless.

I've thought a lot about what I can or should be doing with the homeless and the beggars of this city. Filling backpacks with supplies. Volunteering at a shelter. Handing out food. Something, I know, is better than nothing. And I do need to do something, it's what my Master has called me to. But it's so overwhelming. There's no way that I can fill enough backpacks. There aren't enough beds in the shelters. There's never enough food. It's overwhelming. But tonight it is more than overwhelming... it's just beyond me. Tonight people will die.

Oh God, be with the homeless of this city tonight. Be with them in a miraculous way. Keep them warm in your arms in a way that defies comprehension and nature. Lord your eye is on even the smallest bird, don't look away from those in need of warmth tonight. Forgive me.