I want

• A bundt pan
• A leather saddle for my Raleigh-bike
• A magical insta-dry zapper for nail polish
• 85 degree weather tomorrow, instead of an expected heat index of 110

Note to self

Don't even bother trying to revive day old boba. The centers will still be hard and the outsides will disintegrate, no matter how long you put them in 100 degree Celsius water, like the package says.

Kids love bubbles

Some of the aunts brought out bubbles to entertain the kids at Steph & Tim's wedding while they waited for dinner to be served. The kids were THRILLED.

Sunflowers

Last weekend my dear friend Steph got married to her boyfriend of 5 or 6 years. Colin and I went out to California for their wedding -- in part to attend the wedding of a good friend, and in part to make the wedding cake. Pictures will be trickling in.

The wedding was sort of themed around sunflowers. Sunflower bouquets scattered around, sunflower colored shoes, a sunflower bride's bouquet, etc, etc. I've just been out in 100 degree heat here in DC (so glad to come home to that!) so I don't have much commentary right now. Just the pictures.

Mormons in the Pride Parade

As someone whose has received a lot of judgement and hate (directly and indirectly) from those calling themselves Christians, reading this article about Mormons marching in the Utah Pride Parade brought a lot of tears to my eyes. I haven't personally lived in a Mormon-centric city or state, but I can certainly sympathize with those who do. One memory I have is visiting a friend's relatives who were Southern Baptists and spending the entire dinner meal dreading the inevitable "What does your father do?" because I knew that their opinion of me would be completely changed if they realized I came from a lesbian household. Thankfully the question never came.

The article I linked to above is primarily composed of accounts from the Mormons marching. Here is one excerpt that particularly spoke to me: 

"Here I was using this opportunity to put word in to action, to show my children I practice what I preach. But how my example paled to the overwhelming outpouring of love that we received from the crowds! We were so immediately accepted, applauded, thanked, encouraged, forgiven. There was no hesitation on their part, even though it would have been warranted, the way they have been hurt by church policy.

But no. Instead of harboring ill feelings, this beautiful, courageous, misunderstood LGBT community showed more Christ-like love than I have felt in a long, long time. It was hard to feel worthy of it."

I'm having trouble articulating why the quote is so important/beautiful to me. Okay, for example, if someone places high value on keeping a very neat and orderly home, for them to complement someone else's on being neat and orderly, that is very high praise. They are praising someone on something they value very highly.

For a Mormon to praise the GLBT community of exhibiting "Christ-like love" is very high praise indeed, because this is something they value very highly. I'm proud of the Mormons marching in the parade to be able to recognize that quality in their GLBT brothers and sisters.



I went to a protest against a KKK gathering in St. Paul, MN once. That protest made me feel ill because rows of protesters stood across the street from the KKK members giving them the finger and chanting, "FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU." How could they call themselves any better in that moment, when their response to the hateful KKK was to try to throw even more hate back at them? How is that a protest against hate?

I'm proud of the GLBT folks in Utah who threw love back at the Mormons marching in the parade. I'm proud of them for being able to open their hearts to people from a community which has showed them such personalized negativity.

Dog play

I'm friends with some neighbors down the block through our dogs. Before he died, Raleigh was best buds with their feisty 35-40 lb mutt, Maddie. Maddie treated Raleigh like an older brother. She wanted to be wherever he was, do whatever he did, and sniff whatever he was sniffing. Sometimes they would get into a little spat over some stick Raleigh was teasing Maddie with, but mostly they played. Hard.

When I got Kirby, I took her over right away to see if they would get along. At first Kirby was much more interested in sniffing the yard/intimidated by Maddie's in-your-face nature, but now they get along great. Kirby gives as good as she gets, spinning in circles and dancing out of Maddie's way, only to jump up, wrap her legs around Maddie's neck, and go for the ears. They pause every few minutes to pant at each other/take a timeout before things get too heated.

I finally remembered to take a camera over on a day with good light. Here are a few:

Check out Maddie's four-legged jump straight up

Kirby tries to dodge a leg attack

Time-out

And, resume!

Reading

Reading: Drown, by Junot Diaz.

I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in college. It was one of my favorite pieces of fiction read for a class. Junot Diaz came to speak, and the man is fucking sharp. I've been wanting to read this since then, 3 or 5 years ago. I bought the book as a treat to myself after my second interview with Mundo Verde.

Way opens: officially

Now that it's official, I can say this without fear of the internet repeating it back to me in the voice of my supervisor:

On Friday I was offered and accepted a position at a new bilingual public charter school. I will be teaching in Spanish to three year olds. Right now, this is my ideal job.

A few months ago, after a couple babysitting gigs which left me feeling happy and energized, I thought to myself, "What if I could hang out with preschoolers every day? What if I could look at children's faces instead of spreadsheets and reports all day? That would be awesome," I thought. I did a quick Google search to try to figure out what the certification requirements were in DC to teach preschool. Among the top 10 pages which popped up was a employment listing for a teaching fellowship at Mundo Verde Bilingual Charter School. What? A Spanish/English immersion school? What? A focus on sustainability? What? A teaching model focused on exploration, hands-on activities, and personalized learning goals? What? No certification required?! Hot shit, that is the awesomest, right? It's basically everything I could want in a school -- elements it hadn't even occurred to me to think about.

I sent a couple of emails to my babysitting parents to see if they knew anything about this school. Within half an hour I had a response from Bridget, mom to two of the most delightful, inquisitive, cheerful boys you could hope to meet. Their oldest, Pablo (who recently turned 4) was a preschool student at Mundo Verde, and she couldn't speak highly enough of it. Then I got a response from Sam, dad of another toddler I take care of sometimes. He is a writer, and he is focusing his next book partially on Mundo Verde -- he visits often and knows many of the staff.

This is when it started to feel like way was opening. I had found an incredible school, with the perfect opening, and my small babysitting community was well-connected.

And, what else can I say? I agonized over my application. I think I took two weeks to write it. I wanted it to be the best it could be, because I wanted this job. Really, really wanted it. I'm a somewhat superstitious person -- I knock on wood, and hesitate to speak of positive possibilities for fear that I might jinx them. But I threw that out with this job application process. I wanted to send as much positive energy into the universe as possible. I told everyone I knew about it, so that I could collect even more positive energy. I got an interview, I got a second interview. They checked my references. They offered me the job. When I got the phone call, she said, "We'd like to offer you the position of Teaching Fellow for Preschool 3." I had to ask her to repeat herself -- I hadn't heard anything after "offer."

So, in July I'll begin my training and will start teaching full time on August 27th. I can't wait.




By the way, I think I only have like three people who read this blog, but in case you don't know what "Way opens means" -- Patricia Wild describes it as "the serendipitous unfolding of God's will for a person or community." And that is really what it felt like when it was happening -- serendipity, with an extra dash of intentionality from a higher power (which I most commonly think of simply as the cosmos). Brent Bill expands on this thought: he says that proceeding as way opens means "to wait for guidance, to avoid hasty judgment or action, to wait for future circumstances to help solve a problem. The spiritual guidance which may come in a time of seeing or entirely unexpectedly, bringing suggestion for previously unforeseen action."

I was miserable at my job this time last year. I was the only Project Specialist (similar to Program Assistant) on an enormous contract, I was being slammed with work I had no idea how to keep up with, and I was having difficulty assimilating to the corporate culture at my workplace. I tried for months to find a different job. I only received one call back, and did not get a second interview.

I can't help but think that last summer just wasn't the right time for me. I've certainly learned a lot in the last year, both about myself and about how to be an employee/coworker. Maybe I needed to have those experiences. And maybe I needed to still be where I am, so that I could find this opportunity and follow it. That, to me, is way opening. It doesn't always happen when you want it to, and it doesn't always happen cleanly or easily. But when it happens, you should let it happen. It will probably be good for you.

Way opens

Holy shit, it really does.