Oysters and the South Pacific Ocean

I made it to New Zealand!

It took 24 hours of long traveling, combined with some wine and ambien, but made it nonetheless.

I ate some fresh from the oyster farm oysters white sitting above the south pacific ocean.

Shocking!

How much more incredible could this be?

Snowed in 2010

I love counting on yearly snow-ins.

Last year it was in March and we were stranded at the boys house in Franklinton. Now we are all living together here and stranded again. Funny how things evolve. This time last year we were dreaming of everything we are doing right now... and now we are dreaming of even greater things than this...

I am looking forward to a reflection a year from now to see how things have evolved.

I am sitting inside, cold, watching the rest of my housemates run around the median in snow gear playing winter tackle football and frisbee. Kelly, the only woman out there, is really holding her own.

I just watched her wildly fling herself into the snow... get half way up and then fling herself helplessly back into the snow. hahaha. Such freedom, such beauty.

The boys are out there ramming into each other and tossing one another into the snow.

Oh happy days.

What are we thinking of and dreaming of and working on these days?

Here is a quick list...

Coffee shop in Franklinton, for a place of community gathering, a place for artistic expression, a place to employ locals, a place to keep our homeless friends warm in the winter and serve them a hot cup of coffee.

Community garden move to the two plots of land on either side of our house for growing our own food and helping our neighbors grow their own food.

Bike shop grant, pretty self explanatory, for developing the already existing bike shop.

Food co op, to finally get a place that can sell decent food in this neighborhood.

Renters rights education for our neighbors to fight their slumlords.

Creatively trying to resist gentrification and the placement of a casino into the neighborhood.

Weekly services in our basement chapel, usually by candle light, observing advent and now Epiphany, in attempt to deepen our spirituality and continue in worship.

That sums it up for now... there are people to warm up and coffee to drink...

Peace and peace!

picture update...

Our house...

Warehouse next to the bike shop

The start of our new house band called Bears Did This... stay tuned.

Hay ride with our st johns family...

Dance party with Junior in our kitchen...

Microloans... bringing global justice?

I think so!

I made my first micro-loan today to a woman in Nigeria named Mabel who is trying to run a grocery store...
http://www.kiva.org/ if you are interested in more info about micro-financing etc.

It is basically providing a non interest loan to the poor who are attempting to start businesses in order to survive in undeveloped countries.

You can give as little as $25 and eventually (hopefully) the loan will be repaid by the entrepreneur at the success of their work. There is a risk that it won't be paid back in instances like natural disasters, health issues, crop failure etc. To me it seems like a risk that is worth taking for the sake of global justice!

City wants to register vacant residences

Article from the Columbus Dispatch... I am going to check it out if anyone is interested last minute!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 3:15 AM

Columbus officials have crafted legislation that would require owners of vacant and abandoned houses to register them with the city and hire local property managers to inspect and maintain them.

The proposal is aimed at curbing the blight and damage that foreclosures and the economy have inflicted on many of the city's neighborhoods.

It targets out-of-town property owners who buy up cheap properties and sit on them in hopes of making a financial killing down the road.

A registry like this would track the owners so the city can hold them responsible, said Assistant City Attorney Jody Spurlock.

The proposal would require owners to carry liability insurance on vacant properties and provide their neighbors with emergency contact numbers.

And it would make them file "statements of intent," including how long they expect their properties to remain vacant and a plan to fix up, demolish or sell the property.

But there's been no discussion on how the city would implement the proposed changes, which will likely be tweaked, Spurlock said.

"We threw in everything but the kitchen sink, presuming a lot would come out in the end," she said.

Charleta B. Tavares, the Columbus City Council member who chairs the health, housing and human-services committee, will host a public hearing on the proposal at 5:30 p.m. today at City Hall, the first of at least two hearings.

"We looked at some of the best practices around the country and came up with what we felt were some of the best measures to combat the problem," said James Ragland, Tavares' aide.

Snowbirds who flee Columbus for weeks or months during the winter would not be required to register, Tavares said.

Columbus has more than 5,300 vacant homes, many of which attract arsonists, thieves, squatters and drug dealers. Many fall into disrepair and threaten neighborhood property values.

Columbus already has an ordinance that requires owners of vacant and abandoned properties to register with the city, but only if they fail to fix problems after the city cites them.

Another problem is that the city can't find the property owners.

"If what we have on the books didn't work, maybe we need to look at other measures," Tavares said.

Laura Swanson, the executive director of the Columbus Apartment Association, said she believes the proposal would require owners to register a single apartment that has been vacant for 30 days, even if it's the only vacancy among hundreds of units.

Donna Hicho, executive director of the Greater Linden Development Corp., said the city needs to track owners and make sure they keep properties in good shape.

"Anything we can do to regulate them and have more accountability can only benefit the neighborhood," she said.

Here we are...

... full from a delicious dinner that Greg whipped up in a matter of minutes consisting of homemade egg noodles, eggplant parmesan, and tomatoes from our garden.

Sitting around listening to music... a beautiful thing this is. A good and beautiful thing without a doubt. Somehow it still feels hard, and a bit gray. The suffering that is constant all around us, all the time, feels heavy. We are trying to learn to have fun and enjoy life in the midst of all the heaviness. Time will help. Prayer and conservation probably will too.

I also think I have some of my own soul searching to do... some things to deal with... some feelings and emotions to sort though... and I need to choose my words carefully.

In other news, we have another person moving in this coming month. A guy from PA who is looking for an escape and, through some mutual friends, found us to put him up for a few months. This will bring our grand total to 8. We will surely keep each other warm this winter. I am really looking forward to providing some longer term hospitality to a brother in need.

On that note, off to enjoy silence... and search around my soul and my scattered mind a bit...

I'll leave you with some love from the Buddha...

"Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence."

From Kelly's blog...

My thoughts exactly...

" Tonight at femma we wrote letters to legislators regarding domestic violence as a pre-existing condition for health insurance coverage and baked chocolate-chip cookies. Even while passionate letters were handwritten, a funk hung about the group, not unlike the funk that has been plaguing us the past few weeks.

It is hard to live in this neighborhood. When the boys lived here and we drove in from Cville almost nightly, I didn’t notice it. There’s something about the hopelessness that permeates every street corner interaction or handful of broken glass littering the street. Though the neighborhood was the first settled of our state, the trees are young and small. Everything is decayed and nothing is colorful except for neon signs and pawn shop windows– and even those are covered with “the Franklinton film.” That’s what I call the dull and filmy coat hanging over everything from Mount Carmel to the Hilltop. Cigarette smoke, city pollution, oil and dirt rubbed off of last months clothes, and spilled Cobra. This morning biking to street church, Ashley heard a man yelling violently at his wife (an obscenely regular occurence on front porches and streets) and she yelled, “I HATE THIS PLACE!”

It’s just that ills are not kept behind walls in Franklinton. Everything is so overwhelmingly not behind walls that it is, in fact, strewn all over the overgrown lawn. It is this explicitness that makes for a difficult transition. Or, at least, a sudden and undiluted one.

We do have new neighbors to our left, which we have been waiting for. It is a family of six, and the three boys play football in our front median. They are a delightful family– we have already gotten to share some tomatoes and yard tools with them. So far we have seen them communicate very lovingly and respectfully to each other, which is a relief.

It is nice to finally see our homeless friends in passing throughout the week instead of at one designated time, and indeed helps the area feel like home. I would feel more threatened by random passersby if they didn’t smile familiarly and call us “sissy.”

I paint a bleak picture. It’s what I see but not what I hope for."