fall thankful list

leaves turning colors
having a reliable car to drive
warm coats
cozy blankets
books
Ian getting to come home to me
An amazing husband who cooks dinner for me
church office volunteers
friends I haven't seen in a while
hot food
toaster streudels, especially raspberry!

I'm tired of you, Anonymous.

So the Phillies made the World Series. And everyone there is excited. It's enough to make me contemplate retracting my statement that I would never cheer for them, because their fans are jerk-faces who can't realize it's JUST a game. This is, of course, generally speaking from our experience, both as opposing-team fans at a Cubs vs. Phillies game, and as objective observers at two other Phillies games. At our first game, we were verbally attacked multiple times at the game and cussed at out car windows when we were walking dejectedly home, 30 minutes away from the stadium. At another game, we witnessed a crowd of teenagers cussing loudly and making lewd remarks (spurred by a 50-something woman who was completely intoxicated and flashed the crowd) in front of a large group of young children. Their fans are known to be horrible, although not as "passionate" as Eagles fans.

Despite all this I was making a slow transition until tonight, when I get a comment from "Anonymous" who says "get over yourself and go back to your state, we don't even want you in philly." (If you're such a proud Philadelphian and Phillies fan, why can't you take responsibility for your words?)

Thanks, we got that message at our first game, multiple times with multiple words I will not repeat. Obviously you didn't read the post to see the reasons for my position. I'm not thinking about myself. I'm thinking about the thousands of people you cannot behave decently towards because you can't get over yourself. You are only reinforcing my conclusion. I'm horrified at how you, to "support" your team, verbally attack anyone not wearing Phillies gear. I don't believe anything, sports, politics, religion, gives you an excuse to to treat another human being like dirt. How is that supporting a team? I can't bring myself to join a group of people who, collectively, act in this manner.

Having said that, I do know some great Phillies fans: friends from church, William (the homeless guy near our old apartment), and others. And for their sakes, and their sakes only, I will be happy if the Phillies win.

Jordan & Karen's overlapping visits

First off, happy birthday to Micki and Debbie, yesterday and tomorrow, respectively!

Ian's up in studio again working on an essay test and his master's project stuff, so I'm doing another catch-up blog. Today I tackle Jordan and Karen's overlapping visits! Jordan stayed with us for a week, and Karen visited on a weekend, with a full day overlapping for the four of us to all spend time together. It was great to see you both!

I'll start with Jordan's visit following our return from the Big Apple. When Ian and I were working Jordan enjoyed roaming the city, from Penn's campus to Rittenhouse Square (home of Jordan's new favorite statue: the lion attacking the snake, in bronze). In the evenings, we took him to some must-see Philly landmarks. First up? Geno's Famous Steaks. We tried Pat's with Sarah, so decided to try the flip side, and boy was it tasty.

Here are Ian and Jordan enjoying the cheesesteaks.

This is Geno's....

This is Pat's, which is across the street. We liked Geno's better... no political statement though, just straight up for the food.

On the walk home, we came across this sweet bike shop!

The next day, on the walk home from work, I saw this protest march: "Dalai Lama, stop lying." The Dalai Lama was in the city giving speeches at this time.

After Karen arrived, she joined us in our new game obsession: Bananagrams, which we picked up at a Barnes & Noble in NYC. People have told me it's very much like speed Scrabble. We just know it's fun!

Here's Jordan with "quintillionaire." He lost the game, but we were impressed!

Friday I had the day off, so I joined Jordan and Karen in exploring the historic side of Philly. We took the Independence Hall tour and wandered around the area.

Our tour guide was great!

Here's the stairs they snuck up on in National Treasure.

We were tired, so we took a nap under this amazing old tree.

We also saw The Dark Knight on opening day.

Here's Ian holding our popcorn!

The next morning, Ian saw Jordan off, we slept more, then explored with Karen. We took her to the Italian Market. One of our discoveries was a cool spice shop with an old carousel horse in front of it. The sign says "Ouch — my back hurts. Please don't ride me. Neigh Neigh Neigh Neigh Neigh Neigh."

We also viewed the cityscape at night from the Rocky stairs.

I accidentally tipped my camera mid-photo and it came out like this!

Sunday we enjoyed a great church service, then a great lunch at our beloved Caribou Cafe. We introduced Karen to the butterscotch brioche bread pudding!

We wandered around Penn's campus, and Ian had a little too much fun with the camera. These are just a few of the many shots he took!

We're so glad you both could visit. We appreciate your friendship so much!

$40 million a week in political advertising.

I just read an article in the New York Times about how much money Obama and McCain are spending in advertising for their campaigns. Just this past week, Obama spent over $30 million, and McCain a little under $10 million, if I read the graph right. Both are spending lots in negative campaigns against their rivals. Obama has the money (his campaign is expected to announce they raised over $100 million in September) to put out both positive and negative ads, being his own "good cop bad cop" as the article states and blowing out McCain's ads.

Quite frankly, I'm baffled that in one month America donates, with the economy in crisis, such a large amount of money for a single politician, and I wonder if we care that much about other causes, like poverty, the millions of homeless people here, or the starving children in Africa. I hope so. Right now I'm disgusted with politics. Everyone is spending oodles of money attacking everyone else. What a waste.

NYC take 2 with the Lion

Ian's out with some of his landscape architecture friends, so I'm taking advantage of me-time and catching up (a little!) with blogging! I'll start where I left off: Jordan's visit in July. He arrived super early on a Saturday morning, later than he planned due to the Greyhound bus driver accidentally driving all the way to Jersey. We still made it to the Bolt Bus stop in time for our ride to NYC, and met up with Carissa when we got there. We have 182 photos from this two-day excursion, so I'll get right to the photo highlights!

We started out in Bryant Park, design by Olin.

This was the carousel we sat by, and where were approached by an man who needed grocery money.

As we were walking, we ran across the Naked Cowboy.

Ian and Jordan chilled at Columbus Circle.

We accidentally ended up on Fifth Avenue, and saw the Dolce & Gabbana store. Freaky. America is so materialistic.

This was an interesting members-only cool enclave we saw around there.

We saw this amazing jazz band while hanging out in Central Park.

 

This cute little kid was fascinated by the drummer.

We walked down Park Avenue.

We saw the waterfalls installed as artwork by Olafur Eliasson, who was featured at the MoMA on our last NYC visit.

We herded onto the Staten Island Ferry. It was a lot of people!

*A funny video, again, since Ian doesn't tell me when he starts filming.

I found a web site that says that one ferry can carry 4440 passengers. That's a lot of life vests.

We visited Trinity Church, which completes, basically, our tour of National Treasure filming spots.

The day we were at Trinity Church happened to be Alexander Hamilton's death day, hence, the flowers.

Ian, as our tour guide, explained the design theory behind the park across from Ground Zero.

Ground Zero, 7 years later.

Ian, Jordan, Carissa, and I stopped to eat pizza after a LONG day of walking. My feet hurt. And that wasn't the end of our walking that day!

We walked past the New York Stock Exchange.

And walked halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge. I found it a little scary, suspended over water and high speed traffic, but it was a beautiful view!

We made our pilgrimage to the Apple Store. The actual store is underground. Above ground is a glass box, with a round glass elevator and a glass spiral staircase. Below is heaven.

The guys stayed with a couple of Carissa's church friends in Brooklyn, and I stayed with Carissa at Fordham. Sunday morning we took the train back into the city, and got off at Grand Central Station.

Here's a random platform.

Ian tried to feed a squirrel some bacon.

But apparently the squirrel was vegan. One sniff and he retreated.

We visited another award-winning park, designed by Thomas Balsley, a pompous jerk. The park now has overgrown bamboo, lots of trash behind that orange wall, and creepy homeless people. No dog run, though. When we listened to his lecture, Balsley emphasized he tries to put in dog runs in every project he does, because apparently that's what makes a space successful. Can you tell I'm not impressed?

We ran into a cool park on the way from creepy park, I mean Capitol Plaza, to the bus stop. It was simple and relaxing.

That's the end for now! I'll continue sometime soon (hopefully) with Jordan and Karen's overlapping visits in Philly, and our remaining time there and trip back to Kansas!

A dose of CNN

I wrote this in June, and sat on it. But I reread it today while I was waiting for the bulletins to finish printing and thought I'd still post it. Two reasons: I feel smart because I called the recession, and I feel it is still relevant in terms of our current economy woes and the upcoming election.

While my family visited, I got a dose of The Road to the Presidency 2008 via CNN. One evening, there were four almost consecutive pieces that caught my attention.

1. A discussion of Obama and McCain's positions on rising gas prices and their solutions.
2. A legal firm that helps foreign workers obtain visas was audited for being too involved in their clients' hiring process, hurting middle-class Americans' job opportunities.
3. The rising cost of everything, from food to mortgages.
4. The controversy over Dr. Dobson criticizing Obama for his Biblical interpretations, versus Obama saying faith and morals should impact public policy.

These all connected in my mind. Hopefully my big ideas and revelations will make sense. And if I offend with my soapbox stands, I am unapologetic. Offenses are unintended, but I don't think my criticisms are undeserved. And keep in mind I am making generalizations — I'm analyzing our overall culture and realize there are exceptions, sometimes large ones, to the statements I make.

Our society has unrealistic and contradicting expectations and we refuse to take responsibility. We expect our government to fix things for us and make our lives better. The McCain camp and Obama camp spoke loudly over each other about how their candidate will fix things, and his opponent can't. But I don't see a big movement towards encouraging us to change our lifestyles to help with the problem. In fact, lifestyle changes due to lack of options (not driving because we literally can't afford the gas), are treated as an inconvenience, not a long-term solution. We just focus on how the government should fix the problem for us.

This thought continues into the story about American companies hiring foreign workers. The people interviewed said they want companies to do the "right" thing, not just the "legal" thing, inferring the companies hiring cheaper foreign labor have a moral obligation to hire US workers. However, our economy is all about making money. Companies have to pay higher wages to Americans, which would translate into smaller profits. Wouldn't that hurt our economy and drive prices up even more? So while you would have a job, it would cost you in other ways. Yes, I understand the frustration. But when it pays to (legally) hire foreign workers and we condition them to chase increased profits, can we blame them?

Moreover, companies propagate the condition by constantly tell us to spend our money so they can increase their profits. Promos for everything you "need" are everywhere, like a new giant flat screen HDTV or designer clothes. Spend, don't save. Who cares if it is on a high-interest credit card. People outrun their coverage, and get stuck when they have to start paying. Now, when situations drive up the cost of necessities like food, people are crunching to cover the bills.

I know that this isn't the case for everyone. But think about it. You pick your priorities. Do you spend money on more than basic food, protection from the elements, the cheapest way to work, basic clothing needs? I include myself in this. I don't mean spending money for enjoyment is wrong. We just need to be responsible and save for a rainy day so when things happen out of our control, we don't lose everything. Work for what you get, and spend only what you have.

I don't mean to say people's problems are small. I refuse to say if you are struggling right now, too bad, you are responsible, get over it. I empathize; and I think it shows our culture needs to reevaluate. Even the government assumes we will spend all the money we get — we received the economic stimulus payment to increase sales to help the economy. Our economy needs to constantly be growing. While I am not an economist, it seems inevitable it will eventually see a recession.

With the news constantly rehashing our woes and unintentionally highlighting the seeming futility of politics, you think I would feel depressed. But I don't. It reminds me while men fail, God doesn't. We can rely on him. I appreciate Obama saying faith does have a place in government: political positions based on religious beliefs shouldn't have to be checked at the door. That doesn't mean I'll blindly vote for him. I need to weigh his faith and positions against the truth I know. But I hope this gets people talking and thinking. I look at our problems and I know God has answers.

I think of what C.S. Lewis wrote about how we get polarized: Democrats and Republicans, for example, and not exclusively right or wrong. We focus too much on one area, and we lose other vital things. A real, wholly biblical community would scare the pants off everyone because it would be so radical — not in a violent political sense, but in a way that contradicts our society and is unlike anything we generally see today. Love, selflessness, giving up our wants for others' needs, responsibility, much more than I can summarize here. C.S. Lewis sounds much more intelligent than that, but I think that's the general idea. Read Mere Christianity for the whole picture. These ideas also connect with a few quotes from Velvet Elvis I thought would conclude this nicely, in regards to God's call for us in our society.

Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. ... It is in the flow of real life, in the places we live and move with the people we're on the journey with, that we are reminded it is God's world and we're going to be okay.

It is our turn to rediscover the beautiful, dangerous, compelling idea that a group of people, surrendered to God and to each other, really can change the world.