Not Sideways the movie, but a digital camera film shot sideways. Doh.
I can't figure out a free, legal way to flip the movie and most of you are on laptops you can turn sideways anyway.
So this is the first dance from Lucy Ann and Pierre's beautiful wedding I raved about in the last blog. Yes, that is a fog machine and ticker tape. Extravagant and fantastic.
And this is the same wonderful couple cutting their very tall cake — with a sword. In the immortal words of Borat, wawaweewa
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Did we get married?
I don’t make a habit of watching royal weddings or checking out celebrity wedding photos in US Weekly, but I’m pretty sure those nuptials aren’t as fabulous as my cousin Lucy Ann’s wedding to Pierre. And I know the guests don’t feel nearly as welcome at the paparazzi weddings (though, not to be outdone, there was a newspaper photographer clicking away at Lucy Ann's reception).
My cousin literally welcomed us at the airport — makeup and hair extensions well in place — to meet us and whisk us off to the first pre-wedding party.
She wasn’t the only person who greeted us at the airport. As we walked toward the customs and immigration desks, a uniformed officer was calling out for “Mrs. Gostanian.” That was my mom’s last name until 39 years ago, when she became Mrs. Graham. It took her a second to recognize the name, say yes, and follow him to a separate desk. We nervously went with her. In the U.S., a uniformed officer taking you aside at the airport is never a good thing.
We weren’t in the U.S.
He took our passports, stamped them, welcomed us to Lebanon in perfect English and led us past all the lines and out to our waiting entourage.
In addition to the radiant bride was my loving uncle (pictured at left with my sister, who thankfully un-cancelled her ticket two days before our flight) and my mom’s two best friends from our Indonesia days. Denise Boustani and Mona Ajam had gifts and warm hugs for all of us, even though they weren’t even there to pick us up. They had driven an hour just to meet us and turn around to go home.
We had other plans.
Christine and my sister, Shevan, got their first taste of Beirut with Lucy Ann driving to the hotel for a quick change, then back across the city for the first of four pre-wedding parties. For better or worse, during the week, they missed the heart-stopping … um … thrill of riding with my other cousin, Avo.
Anyway, this first wedding event was advertised as a barbecue but bore little resemblance to a backyard weenie roast. It was on a swanky apartment building rooftop overlooking the city. The downtown area was to the north, and the building is sandwiched between two fine hotels — a quiet, safe tourist-heavy part of town, I thought. Then the host oriented us to the scenery, including the street directly south, which is full of lights and tall buildings. He told us several of the month’s gunfights were on that street.
Not that we could tell now. The street was quiet, and the rooftop was not.
The party was essentially a welcome and mixer for the younger generation on the wedding guest list. But even this low-key event saw a full open bar, a bigger catering spread than our entire wedding and fancy dresses aplenty.
I quickly learned yet another advantage to being male — in Lebanon, we can wear jeans and t-shirts in public at any time. Women need at least one new dress for each event, let alone the hours spent at the hair salon, the manicurist and the makeup artist. Granted, the jeans are ideally pricey, pre-ripped designer jobs and the shirts are fitted, glittery and won’t be found at Target or the Salvation Army, where I do most of my shopping.
Anyway, it was wonderful to meet some distant relatives and my cousins’ close friends.
After a full day of sightseeing and history (more on that in another blog entry), we hit the second night of pre-wedding parties. When I say family dinner at a seafood restaurant, don’t think Red Lobster. The chain (and there probably is an outlet in Beirut — plenty of American chains are somehow attracting diners away from fantastic felafel, kebab and tabouleh) has nothing on this fantastic seaside oasis. We had three large tables on a large open-air deck literally on the Mediterranean. I could have spent the whole week right at that spot, but I would have put on about 50 pounds eating all the fantastic fish, salads, fruit and other delicacies. Probably the best meal of the week, but that’s no easy call.
The next night brought the bachelor and bachelorette party. I’ll let Christine gush about the glamorous “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” bachelorette party. By handshake agreement, all I can say about the bachelor party is that we went to Excalibur.
The final pre-game show was a fabulous rehearsal dinner that took over an entire restaurant. I can’t say much about the event because it coincided with the beginning of 36 hours running from bed to toilet to remind me I no longer have the stomach of steel I developed in Indonesia — a bacterial infection that was the only lousy part of my Lebanon trip.
OK, so finally to the main event. Sorry for the long buildup, but I had to offer a taste of the whole weeklong blowout. I had some hint of the extravaganza when I saw three still cameras and two video crews — including a boom larger than most movie crews.
They captured the entire beautiful wedding in the Armenian church. They were also ready at the ornate hotel ballroom to film the reception. Hopefully they captured part of the elaborate production.
About a dozen costumed dancers circled the stage in Victorian era costumes and masks, dancing and leading the proud, beautiful and perfect bride and groom into the reception. Also, in case anyone forgot the woman in the stunning, flowing white number was the bride, there was also a fog machine and roman candles announcing her arrival. As the couple smiled and twirled through their first dance, Lucy Ann did a fantastic job of making eye contact with every guest in the room, and making them feel like the guest of honor.
I later found out the dancing troupe is standard fare for a Beirut wedding — kind of like the Lebanese “Chicken Dance.”
The troupe returned after dinner — after a complete costume change (they are pictured at right in their flamenco costumes) — with more smoke and sparklers to lead out the bride and groom again to cut a big cake with a bigger sword. Despite the tall bar set by the professional twirlers, most of the guests made their way to the dance floor for at least some of the band’s mix of Western, Arabic and Armenian jams — though it was missing “Abercrombie Zombie” and a song about colonoscopies.
The food was great, though somewhat wasteful because most everyone I saw was already full before the second main course (!!!) was served, and most had sampled the forty other desserts before Pierre and Lucy Ann cut the cake.
It was easily the most lavish and extravagant wedding I have ever attended. I have very fond memories of our simple wedding that we organized and designed to reflect our personalities. At the same time, my dad summed up the evening when he turned to my mom to ask, “Did we even get married?”
My cousin literally welcomed us at the airport — makeup and hair extensions well in place — to meet us and whisk us off to the first pre-wedding party.
She wasn’t the only person who greeted us at the airport. As we walked toward the customs and immigration desks, a uniformed officer was calling out for “Mrs. Gostanian.” That was my mom’s last name until 39 years ago, when she became Mrs. Graham. It took her a second to recognize the name, say yes, and follow him to a separate desk. We nervously went with her. In the U.S., a uniformed officer taking you aside at the airport is never a good thing.
We weren’t in the U.S.
He took our passports, stamped them, welcomed us to Lebanon in perfect English and led us past all the lines and out to our waiting entourage.
In addition to the radiant bride was my loving uncle (pictured at left with my sister, who thankfully un-cancelled her ticket two days before our flight) and my mom’s two best friends from our Indonesia days. Denise Boustani and Mona Ajam had gifts and warm hugs for all of us, even though they weren’t even there to pick us up. They had driven an hour just to meet us and turn around to go home.We had other plans.
Christine and my sister, Shevan, got their first taste of Beirut with Lucy Ann driving to the hotel for a quick change, then back across the city for the first of four pre-wedding parties. For better or worse, during the week, they missed the heart-stopping … um … thrill of riding with my other cousin, Avo.
Anyway, this first wedding event was advertised as a barbecue but bore little resemblance to a backyard weenie roast. It was on a swanky apartment building rooftop overlooking the city. The downtown area was to the north, and the building is sandwiched between two fine hotels — a quiet, safe tourist-heavy part of town, I thought. Then the host oriented us to the scenery, including the street directly south, which is full of lights and tall buildings. He told us several of the month’s gunfights were on that street.
Not that we could tell now. The street was quiet, and the rooftop was not.
The party was essentially a welcome and mixer for the younger generation on the wedding guest list. But even this low-key event saw a full open bar, a bigger catering spread than our entire wedding and fancy dresses aplenty.
I quickly learned yet another advantage to being male — in Lebanon, we can wear jeans and t-shirts in public at any time. Women need at least one new dress for each event, let alone the hours spent at the hair salon, the manicurist and the makeup artist. Granted, the jeans are ideally pricey, pre-ripped designer jobs and the shirts are fitted, glittery and won’t be found at Target or the Salvation Army, where I do most of my shopping.
Anyway, it was wonderful to meet some distant relatives and my cousins’ close friends.
After a full day of sightseeing and history (more on that in another blog entry), we hit the second night of pre-wedding parties. When I say family dinner at a seafood restaurant, don’t think Red Lobster. The chain (and there probably is an outlet in Beirut — plenty of American chains are somehow attracting diners away from fantastic felafel, kebab and tabouleh) has nothing on this fantastic seaside oasis. We had three large tables on a large open-air deck literally on the Mediterranean. I could have spent the whole week right at that spot, but I would have put on about 50 pounds eating all the fantastic fish, salads, fruit and other delicacies. Probably the best meal of the week, but that’s no easy call.
The next night brought the bachelor and bachelorette party. I’ll let Christine gush about the glamorous “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” bachelorette party. By handshake agreement, all I can say about the bachelor party is that we went to Excalibur.
The final pre-game show was a fabulous rehearsal dinner that took over an entire restaurant. I can’t say much about the event because it coincided with the beginning of 36 hours running from bed to toilet to remind me I no longer have the stomach of steel I developed in Indonesia — a bacterial infection that was the only lousy part of my Lebanon trip.
OK, so finally to the main event. Sorry for the long buildup, but I had to offer a taste of the whole weeklong blowout. I had some hint of the extravaganza when I saw three still cameras and two video crews — including a boom larger than most movie crews.
They captured the entire beautiful wedding in the Armenian church. They were also ready at the ornate hotel ballroom to film the reception. Hopefully they captured part of the elaborate production.
About a dozen costumed dancers circled the stage in Victorian era costumes and masks, dancing and leading the proud, beautiful and perfect bride and groom into the reception. Also, in case anyone forgot the woman in the stunning, flowing white number was the bride, there was also a fog machine and roman candles announcing her arrival. As the couple smiled and twirled through their first dance, Lucy Ann did a fantastic job of making eye contact with every guest in the room, and making them feel like the guest of honor.
I later found out the dancing troupe is standard fare for a Beirut wedding — kind of like the Lebanese “Chicken Dance.”
The troupe returned after dinner — after a complete costume change (they are pictured at right in their flamenco costumes) — with more smoke and sparklers to lead out the bride and groom again to cut a big cake with a bigger sword. Despite the tall bar set by the professional twirlers, most of the guests made their way to the dance floor for at least some of the band’s mix of Western, Arabic and Armenian jams — though it was missing “Abercrombie Zombie” and a song about colonoscopies.
The food was great, though somewhat wasteful because most everyone I saw was already full before the second main course (!!!) was served, and most had sampled the forty other desserts before Pierre and Lucy Ann cut the cake.
It was easily the most lavish and extravagant wedding I have ever attended. I have very fond memories of our simple wedding that we organized and designed to reflect our personalities. At the same time, my dad summed up the evening when he turned to my mom to ask, “Did we even get married?”
Sunday, June 29, 2008
My brain is full
I am back at work installing cabinets in St. Bernard Parish kitchens. It had been nearly a month since I last picked up a drill, and it’s exciting to be back in action. However, my head is still spinning from my monthlong vacation.
The trip began with a rooftop garden party at the end of a peaceful Beirut street that had been the scene of gun battles one week earlier. It ended with a pilgrimage to the birthplaces of Martin Luther King, Jr., R.E.M and Anderson Cooper. OK, I didn’t go to CNN superanchor Cooper’s home, but I saw his office building in Atlanta.
I wish we could have spent a month in Beirut, but we scheduled six days because we didn’t want to stay too long and risk being trapped in the ongoing violence and political chaos that was churning in Lebanon when we booked our tickets. In the end, we could still be there enjoying the beaches and bustle of a wonderful, peaceful city.
Days before our arrival, Lebanon’s governing parties reached a peace deal. As a fairly uninformed outsider, the peace talks seemingly amounted to the country’s weak political parties trying to talk the so-called “terrorist group” Hezbelloh out of another civil war. It worked. Hezbollah militants put down their guns, and their more peaceful members abandoned their downtown protest camps.
On our first full day in Lebanon, we visited this downtown encampment, which had been scrubbed clean and lined with beautiful flowerpots. Businesses had also opened, and people were happily wandering the streets. The area was busier and buzzing with excitement and energy at night.
Last time I was in Beirut, in the summer of 2003, I spent most of my evenings in this downtown area partying with my cousins. This time Christine and I were busy going to more extravagant parties in more extravagant places, but more on that later.
I hope to add a recap of these parties and all our wild international adventures in the coming days. For now, let me offer a final thought on the thrill of being in Lebanon at such an exciting and hopeful time. And I preface this with the acknowledgement that this firmly puts me in the Michael Moore blame-America-first club and I don’t care: I hope the U.S. government doesn’t screw this up.
Syria and Israel are banished to minor roles in Lebanon. A consistently tenuous and perhaps impossible constitutional arrangement seems to be working. Perhaps most important, many Lebanese are tired of fighting. The country is functioning peacefully for perhaps the first time since I was born in the American University of Beirut in May 1975.
But this fragile peace is based largely on meeting Hezbollah’s demands, which doesn’t please the Bush administration. Hezbollah is guilty of terrorist acts, and it has a principal stated aim of destroying Israel. But there is more to the story than anti-semitism and terror. The group provides comfort, aid and services in Lebanon and is a popular political movement in what is largely a power vacuum.
Lebanese leaders have tried several tacks through the rough political waters of a multiparty, religiously balanced democracy in the Middle East. Many have failed. The U.S. needs to stand back and let them try making a coalition government with Hezbollah.
Next time, I’ll get off the soapbox and show you beautiful pictures of Lebanon and tell you stories about our wonderful friends and family.
The trip began with a rooftop garden party at the end of a peaceful Beirut street that had been the scene of gun battles one week earlier. It ended with a pilgrimage to the birthplaces of Martin Luther King, Jr., R.E.M and Anderson Cooper. OK, I didn’t go to CNN superanchor Cooper’s home, but I saw his office building in Atlanta.
I wish we could have spent a month in Beirut, but we scheduled six days because we didn’t want to stay too long and risk being trapped in the ongoing violence and political chaos that was churning in Lebanon when we booked our tickets. In the end, we could still be there enjoying the beaches and bustle of a wonderful, peaceful city.
Days before our arrival, Lebanon’s governing parties reached a peace deal. As a fairly uninformed outsider, the peace talks seemingly amounted to the country’s weak political parties trying to talk the so-called “terrorist group” Hezbelloh out of another civil war. It worked. Hezbollah militants put down their guns, and their more peaceful members abandoned their downtown protest camps.
On our first full day in Lebanon, we visited this downtown encampment, which had been scrubbed clean and lined with beautiful flowerpots. Businesses had also opened, and people were happily wandering the streets. The area was busier and buzzing with excitement and energy at night.
Last time I was in Beirut, in the summer of 2003, I spent most of my evenings in this downtown area partying with my cousins. This time Christine and I were busy going to more extravagant parties in more extravagant places, but more on that later.
I hope to add a recap of these parties and all our wild international adventures in the coming days. For now, let me offer a final thought on the thrill of being in Lebanon at such an exciting and hopeful time. And I preface this with the acknowledgement that this firmly puts me in the Michael Moore blame-America-first club and I don’t care: I hope the U.S. government doesn’t screw this up.
Syria and Israel are banished to minor roles in Lebanon. A consistently tenuous and perhaps impossible constitutional arrangement seems to be working. Perhaps most important, many Lebanese are tired of fighting. The country is functioning peacefully for perhaps the first time since I was born in the American University of Beirut in May 1975.
But this fragile peace is based largely on meeting Hezbollah’s demands, which doesn’t please the Bush administration. Hezbollah is guilty of terrorist acts, and it has a principal stated aim of destroying Israel. But there is more to the story than anti-semitism and terror. The group provides comfort, aid and services in Lebanon and is a popular political movement in what is largely a power vacuum.
Lebanese leaders have tried several tacks through the rough political waters of a multiparty, religiously balanced democracy in the Middle East. Many have failed. The U.S. needs to stand back and let them try making a coalition government with Hezbollah.
Next time, I’ll get off the soapbox and show you beautiful pictures of Lebanon and tell you stories about our wonderful friends and family.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Back off the horse
OK, so I was really good about blogging for a couple of days, but I fell off the horse because I had ... drumroll ... the first power tool accident in St. Bernard Project history. Yes, you should feel very sorry for me and send me iTunes gift cards to make me feel better.
Actually, you shouldn't really feel sorry for me, partly because the accident really isn't all that bad and partly because it was kind of stupid on my part. OK, it was really stupid on my part. I cut my finger on a router. I had run a piece of wood through it and switched it off, but it hadn't stopped spinning. I caught my finger in it, and it sliced up my finger pretty good. It had 15 stitches and is now almost all healed. The doctor took out my stitches today. We should have taken a picture of my middle finger all gross and stitched, but we didn't think about it at the time.
Anyhow, I couldn't type — or do much else — very competently for the past 10 days, so I haven't been blogging.
We didn't make it to that big show last Friday, but we did see Anders Osborne on Saturday night. He was really good but we had to leave early. He didn't start until close to midnight, which is about 3 hours past bedtime. The New Orleans nightlife schedule doesn't really coincide very well with this old couple's work and sleep routine.
Also from the file of "I shouldn't be telling you this, but I will," I am learning how to install cabinets and countertops this week. I am really excited about learning new skills and being able to put in the cabinets in our own little fixer-upper in Fort Collins that we are already planning on buying — unless Christine decides she can't put up with my swearing at tools, doors and other inanimate objects. My old coworkers will recognize that some things never change.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Phoenix Rising
I am thankful that no one has actually harassed me yet about this post (nice try, Steve.) I suppose, however, that the time has come (and gone . . . and come again.) I really have to tell you about the Phoenix house.
Carol Phoenix, and her husband, Truck (or "Mouth of the South," depending on whom you ask,) own half a duplex on Daniel Drive in Violet, LA. They lived there, as renters, for about 13 years before Katrina. After the storm, they were the first to return to their block. They gutted and cleaned their home by day, and they endured the darkness of the near-empty parish in their FEMA trailer at night. They told their landlord that they had every intention of moving back into their home. Miss Carol grew up in St. Bernard Parish. Most of her dozen brothers and sisters live here too. Her parents are buried in the cemetery a few miles from Daniel Drive. With several properties to rebuild, Carol's landlord wasn't sure what he was going to do with each home, and he still isn't. The right decision for Carol's place, however, eventually became clear: in 2007 he gave her the home.
Carol had been taking friends and family members to and from the St. Bernard Project office for months before she officially took ownership of her half of the duplex. Finally, with a home of her own, she took herself. 2814 Daniel Drive became an SBP house and the first house on which I would work as the site supervisor from start to finish.
Carol and Truck are very much at the center of their community. People gather in their yard most evenings, and they used to host spontaneous crab boils two or three times a week. Since the storm, the boils have been a little less frequent, but I can personally assure you that they still happen. Often. And I really can't imagine that anyone does a boil better than Truck. When we were working on the house, he would arrive home with his friends from a successful crabbing trip, pull a table into the unfinished living room, spread it with an old tablecloth and boil the crab with potatoes, celery, spices and whatever else Carol might have in the fridge or friends might bring to the yard. When the boiled feast was ready, Truck lifted the food out of the pot in a basket and literally tossed it all across the table. No silverware required. Actually, no silverware allowed.
One of my volunteers got a lesson from Mr. Simon - a Phoenix House regular - on the fine art of recovering the good stuff from a crab. The volunteers hung the drywall in the background before they sat down to feast.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before there were volunteers seated at tables spread with crab, there were studs. Lost of bare studs. On my first day at the Phoenix house, this was the view from the front door:
After nine weeks of volunteer labor (broken up by a Very Elvis Christmas and a brief stint at another house where Steve and I actually trained AmeriCorps site supervisors (!!!)) Carol owned a real, finished home for the first time in her life. This video tour starts at roughly the same spot from which I took that picture on the first day.
The preceding paragraph, of course, is a ridiculous truncation. In those nine weeks I worked with more than fifty different people from all over the country. There were college groups from Iowa and Minnesota (not Carleton, but they were cool anyway.) A church group from New Jersey did most of the mudding and sanding. A mother and daughter from Maine installed the baseboards and trimmed the windows. A professional electrician from Seattle led two guys from his church group to complete all the finish electric work (and he taught me how to wire the cord to an electric dryer! (-:) What was most amazing, however, was that Carol worked with me every single day.
We will be celebrating with a house warming soon. St. Bernard Project usually hosts these "ribbon cutting ceremonies" at lunch time. Carol and Truck are going to host this party themselves. They want to have the ribbon cutting in the evening so that people will stick around to mingle with their friends and listen to Truck's stories. It will, of course, be a boil.
Carol Phoenix, and her husband, Truck (or "Mouth of the South," depending on whom you ask,) own half a duplex on Daniel Drive in Violet, LA. They lived there, as renters, for about 13 years before Katrina. After the storm, they were the first to return to their block. They gutted and cleaned their home by day, and they endured the darkness of the near-empty parish in their FEMA trailer at night. They told their landlord that they had every intention of moving back into their home. Miss Carol grew up in St. Bernard Parish. Most of her dozen brothers and sisters live here too. Her parents are buried in the cemetery a few miles from Daniel Drive. With several properties to rebuild, Carol's landlord wasn't sure what he was going to do with each home, and he still isn't. The right decision for Carol's place, however, eventually became clear: in 2007 he gave her the home.
Carol had been taking friends and family members to and from the St. Bernard Project office for months before she officially took ownership of her half of the duplex. Finally, with a home of her own, she took herself. 2814 Daniel Drive became an SBP house and the first house on which I would work as the site supervisor from start to finish.
Carol and Truck are very much at the center of their community. People gather in their yard most evenings, and they used to host spontaneous crab boils two or three times a week. Since the storm, the boils have been a little less frequent, but I can personally assure you that they still happen. Often. And I really can't imagine that anyone does a boil better than Truck. When we were working on the house, he would arrive home with his friends from a successful crabbing trip, pull a table into the unfinished living room, spread it with an old tablecloth and boil the crab with potatoes, celery, spices and whatever else Carol might have in the fridge or friends might bring to the yard. When the boiled feast was ready, Truck lifted the food out of the pot in a basket and literally tossed it all across the table. No silverware required. Actually, no silverware allowed.
One of my volunteers got a lesson from Mr. Simon - a Phoenix House regular - on the fine art of recovering the good stuff from a crab. The volunteers hung the drywall in the background before they sat down to feast.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before there were volunteers seated at tables spread with crab, there were studs. Lost of bare studs. On my first day at the Phoenix house, this was the view from the front door:
After nine weeks of volunteer labor (broken up by a Very Elvis Christmas and a brief stint at another house where Steve and I actually trained AmeriCorps site supervisors (!!!)) Carol owned a real, finished home for the first time in her life. This video tour starts at roughly the same spot from which I took that picture on the first day.
The preceding paragraph, of course, is a ridiculous truncation. In those nine weeks I worked with more than fifty different people from all over the country. There were college groups from Iowa and Minnesota (not Carleton, but they were cool anyway.) A church group from New Jersey did most of the mudding and sanding. A mother and daughter from Maine installed the baseboards and trimmed the windows. A professional electrician from Seattle led two guys from his church group to complete all the finish electric work (and he taught me how to wire the cord to an electric dryer! (-:) What was most amazing, however, was that Carol worked with me every single day.
We will be celebrating with a house warming soon. St. Bernard Project usually hosts these "ribbon cutting ceremonies" at lunch time. Carol and Truck are going to host this party themselves. They want to have the ribbon cutting in the evening so that people will stick around to mingle with their friends and listen to Truck's stories. It will, of course, be a boil.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Gettin' all geeky
So I've rapped at y'all a lot about homes and construction and a lot of other junk in New Orleans, but I have been neglecting my other passion here — music. It's OK, because I plan to catch up over two weeks during jazz fest, plus 10 bands at a time during these fantastic wacky showcase things they have here all the time. One of them is coming up Friday at Tipitina's, a great local club. There are at least 10 groups performing starting at 10 p.m. That's right, a full week's worth of bands starting after our bedtime. Hopefully there will be caffeinated drinks available at the volunteer dinner earlier in the evening.
OK, so on to news you can use.
I have already been getting supergeeky about Jazzfest, an incredible two-weekend lineup of great local and national bands of all kinds. I have only gotten about halfway through the first day's lineup, but have already found some great acts and some favorite new albums. First, Allison Krauss and Robert Plant are playing Friday night (but not headlining, somehow). Anyhow, their album is as great as everyone has been saying. I am very excited for that.
I have also just discovered:
— Kim Carson, a fun Houston country singer who doesn't seem to take herself very seriously
— Anders Osborne, a NOLA singer-songwriter who we are seeing on Friday, so more on him later
— The Figs, a rootsy all-female folk-rock band that seems really talented
Go find their music and let me know what you think.
OK, so on to news you can use.
I have already been getting supergeeky about Jazzfest, an incredible two-weekend lineup of great local and national bands of all kinds. I have only gotten about halfway through the first day's lineup, but have already found some great acts and some favorite new albums. First, Allison Krauss and Robert Plant are playing Friday night (but not headlining, somehow). Anyhow, their album is as great as everyone has been saying. I am very excited for that.
I have also just discovered:
— Kim Carson, a fun Houston country singer who doesn't seem to take herself very seriously
— Anders Osborne, a NOLA singer-songwriter who we are seeing on Friday, so more on him later
— The Figs, a rootsy all-female folk-rock band that seems really talented
Go find their music and let me know what you think.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
We're back
We're back in the parish after a fantastic weeklong vacation, and we're back on the blog after a shameful months-long hiatus. I have been embarrassed by the people who said they read the blog and have been awaiting updates. Thanks so much for reading our random babble, and I will make an effort to be more regular and thoughtful on this blog.
Plenty has happened in the many weeks since our last update. As far as the project, the biggest is that Christine and I have each finished our first house. Christine will probably write more about the wonderful Miss Carol and her cute little duplex (in fact, hassle her about our first blog video which she was supposed to post weeks ago). I finished a house for Mary Hookfin and her three kids. It was exciting to see her moving in stuff and working with her friend in the kitchen.
I have since moved around the corner to Leila Lore's house. She is another single mother finalizing a divorce and trying to re-establish her St. Bernard life.
This week, I hope to all but finish her house, which is almost directly behind the house where she grew up. The house had a few problems throughout the process, but they've all pretty much been resolved, and the house is almost done. Exciting stuff.
The project has also grown quickly and changed plenty since our last posts. A new era started in January with the arrival of about 15 Americorps Direct volunteers. They have made the project more of a professional, stable organization just with their presence. They have also made me feel old — both in age, because they are all about 22, and in experience here, because we have been training some of them, and are treated as the old-timers here. It's all kind of bizarre, and makes us feel less needed in some ways but is overall a great thing for the project and for the parish.
OK, that's enough for now. Gotta save some for tomorrow's post.
Plenty has happened in the many weeks since our last update. As far as the project, the biggest is that Christine and I have each finished our first house. Christine will probably write more about the wonderful Miss Carol and her cute little duplex (in fact, hassle her about our first blog video which she was supposed to post weeks ago). I finished a house for Mary Hookfin and her three kids. It was exciting to see her moving in stuff and working with her friend in the kitchen.
I have since moved around the corner to Leila Lore's house. She is another single mother finalizing a divorce and trying to re-establish her St. Bernard life.
This week, I hope to all but finish her house, which is almost directly behind the house where she grew up. The house had a few problems throughout the process, but they've all pretty much been resolved, and the house is almost done. Exciting stuff.
The project has also grown quickly and changed plenty since our last posts. A new era started in January with the arrival of about 15 Americorps Direct volunteers. They have made the project more of a professional, stable organization just with their presence. They have also made me feel old — both in age, because they are all about 22, and in experience here, because we have been training some of them, and are treated as the old-timers here. It's all kind of bizarre, and makes us feel less needed in some ways but is overall a great thing for the project and for the parish.
OK, that's enough for now. Gotta save some for tomorrow's post.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Sister Jean
I haven't written in a while. I've gotten really wrapped up in finishing the Hookfin house - and now it's very close. In fact, it's so close I was expecting to be pulled off the house to start a new house next week, leaving the Hookfin house to be finished by a finishing crew in their spare time. We just need to paint a couple of doors (and hang one on a crooked wall. If anyone can help with that, I would appreciate any advice), put in a few baseboards, then touch up the paint and be on our way.
We would be at least two more weeks away from completion if it wasn't for Sister Jean, an angel from Syracuse who came and worked in the house this week. She is a nurse by trade and ministers with groups in New York and around the country.
She is also a crafty carpenter who knows a little plumbing, some electric work and I think just about anything else she sets her mind to. She solved several problematic carpentry issues for us in the house — and quite beautifully. She made arches around windows and trimmed them out, framed and trimmed out both our front and back doors and was generally a joy and inspiration to work with. She brought three Syracuse students from the Catholic center at the school, and they were wonderful, too. They didn't have her skill level, but they worked hard and got plenty done.
We would be at least two more weeks away from completion if it wasn't for Sister Jean, an angel from Syracuse who came and worked in the house this week. She is a nurse by trade and ministers with groups in New York and around the country.
She is also a crafty carpenter who knows a little plumbing, some electric work and I think just about anything else she sets her mind to. She solved several problematic carpentry issues for us in the house — and quite beautifully. She made arches around windows and trimmed them out, framed and trimmed out both our front and back doors and was generally a joy and inspiration to work with. She brought three Syracuse students from the Catholic center at the school, and they were wonderful, too. They didn't have her skill level, but they worked hard and got plenty done.
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