Sometimes I feel like I live in the zoo

From 8 to 5 on weekdays, at least. My "corner" of the office is almost completely surrounded by windows. I love that I face a wall of windows and that I can see the sky and trees. To my left are another 2 large windows that face an inside hallway of the Divinity School. A few times a week one of the people from Admissions will be giving visitors/prospective students a tour and they'll come and stand right in front of those windows for a few minutes. I'm sure she's telling them all about the Institute on Care at the End of Life (where I work) but as I sit there trying to make sure I'm exhibiting good posture and excellent typing skills I imagine that she's saying, "And here we have one of those strange office workers that has to wear two bulky wrist braces as she types..." and then they all just stand there for a while and I feel awkward and paralyzed and can understand why those monkeys at the zoo we visited last summer kept trying to hide.

The Bible Bus

The first Sunday morning that we lived here I saw a yellow school bus pull up to the house across the street from us and pick up a few kids. A man in a suit went up to the door and knocked. Then the kids came out. My first thought was, wow, what personalized service and isn't 9:00 kind of late for a school bus? Then I remembered that it was Sunday and we were getting ready to go and visit a church. Then I read the words on the side of the bus and realized it was a church bus. That bus comes here every Sunday morning and picks up those kids. I love seeing that bus.

**Update: The family who gets picked up by the "Bible Bus" just rang our doorbell, introduced themselves and invited us over to dinner at their place. They said a bunch of people from their church were coming over. I see them now going around to all the houses on the street. (we have no window coverings yet so it's really easy for us to spy on everyone and I'm sure they're spying on us too...) It's nice to see this kind of neighborly outreach going on. I think we'll go over and get to know our neighbors tonight.**

Security?

Everyone in our neighborhood seems to have a home-alarm system installed, with the reassuring little sign out front warning any prospective no-goods that they had better not come-a-thieving, because "This House is Protected by ADT!!" or some such.

A guy from an ADT competitor company - "Vector" - had come by and talked to Whitney before about getting one installed, you know, because he was terribly worried about our safety. Well, we talked about it, but thought, "nah - civil society is based on trust" (i.e., "We can't afford $50/month!!!!").

That didn't stop this concerned citizen from continuing to come by and leave Vector signs and literature on our door, reminding us that we could have the edge over any scurrilous curs who dared to breach our hallowed sanctuary and sully our utopian domescticity. Ok so that's not what the signs on our door actually said - but that's what they meant.

Anyway, so we came home from school today and found THIS inside our house:



Uh... did that guy just break in to our house to leave this thing here? At first I thought perhaps he shoved it through the door and it fell onto the carpet, but I don't think it fits through the door, and we found it way over by a piece of furniture a few feet away from the door.

I took a good look at that sign and wondered whether being an "authorized dealer" authorized this simp to trammel my haven. It advertised "Quality, Integrity, Customer Care" -- I think to be more accurate it should have read, "Vector - we KNOW crime..."

"Things that make you go hmmmm"

There are lots of things in North Carolina that make us go "hmmm..." I'd like to share with you this morning's "hmmmm...".

I was driving to work and listening to some random radio station that did NOT happen to be a Christian radio station. In between songs some church has a commercial slot where they share "wisdom and encouragement" with listeners. Today's went something like this (with soft piano music in the background): "Naomi thought God wanted a change in her life so she quit her job and started taking classes, reading her Bible and praying all day long. After a while she was discouraged because she wasn't sure what God wanted her to do with her life. Then her friend, a new believer, had a conversation with her and gave her this amazing piece of wisdom, 'Naomi, be patient. A pickle don't get made in a day.'"

That was it. Then the next song came on.

Water Conservation (on a lighter note)

One of the reasons that our home qualified as a "Green Home" is because we have one very special toilet. When we had our "walk through/homeowner orientation" with the builder, they pointed out that our toilet has two flush buttons. One for "solids," one for "liquids." It took me a second to understand what the guy was saying. It's a very special toilet indeed.

Our agent suggested we label the flush bottons "1" and "2" to avoid confusion. What do you think?

Analysis: Our Refrigerator

**I wrote this last Saturday but didn't post it because blogger wasn't allowing me to upload pictures for some reason.....so I'm posting it here even though this picture is awful. (as if the other pictures on our blog are great) What is that bright light in our freezer? It's kind of creepy.**



A picture of the happy fridge, as per Catherine's request. I guess the freezer doesn't look very different from the empty picture below but it does happen to contain the first piece of meat that has been brought into this home. We've been vegetarians at home since we moved in for reasons that were more financial than dietary. It's actually been great. Vegetarian recipes are fun and colorful. In the refrigerator you'll notice the eggs - those are the first eggs that have been brought into the house. I just haven't had occasion to use them yet but a spinach/pine nut quiche is on the menu this week so they were a must. At the top of the fridge is the first bottle of milk this kitchen has seen (wow, what a splurge at the grocery store this week - lots of firsts I had been avoiding for a while.) Also at the top of the fridge is one of our favorite treats: Fage yogurt* (Greek yogurt) with honey. We eat it with walnuts. It's delicious. I wish we could eat it everyday. What you can't see is the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. It is completely full of grapefruit, tangerines, oranges, lemons and limes. Sameer is developing a serious juice drinking problem. He squeezes it all by hand and it is excellent. It's bordering on excessive but I keep buying his citrus for him because I'm sure it's good for both of us.

*A note about Greek yogurt - I don't even like yogurt (it makes me gag) and I love this stuff. It's the best dessert. Last spring I was at this little store in New Haven looking for yogurt because someone had scared me about osteoporosis and the fact that I don't drink milk (don't worry - I eat a lot of dark green leafy vegetables). All they had was Fage yogurt and it looked weird so I didn't buy any but a week later I decided to try it and I am now a fan. It is strained so it's really thick and not watery like regular yogurt. Try it!! (You can find it at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's but it's way more expensive than your "everyday" yogurt)

Shopping

So, I was thinking that maybe I should go grocery shopping today. Not sure. We could always heat up that frozen spinach, sprinkle some lemon juice on it and wrap it in an old whole wheat tortilla. I'm sure that would be fine for dinner.

Suburbia: A Drought of Conscience

Our water restrictions are now pretty severe. Back in August, we could only water every other day - then it went to 2 days a week (Wednesdays and Saturdays) - then it went to Saturdays only (between 5 and 8). As of last Tuesday, we can no longer water our lawns AT ALL. People can water vegetable gardens with a hand held container on Saturdays between 5 and 8. That's it. No washing cars, no hosing down walkways, no serving water in restaurants except upon request (those luxuries were prohibited long ago). Unfortunately, even with all these restrictions, Durham's water usage has only gone down 16%. 16% !! We are entering a crisis. On the city website I found a current lake/river level graph that compared our current state to the drought in 1933-34 (Dust Bowl years). We see people continue to water because they want their grass to grow.

We would like our grass to grow too especially because we just seeded our backyard and we live on a hill. Without roots, our land will erode and void the structural warranty on our new home (and because when it rains here it pours, part of our backyard slides into the neighbor's backyard every time it rains.) So, we are not watering. But we do continue to take regular and long showers, prepare a lot of tea and coffee, use our dishwasher, etc. What we have really started realizing is how strongly we are gripped by a consumer mentality. Several people around us continue to water their lawns (by far the biggest source of water-waste in the present climate), just ignoring the restrictions altogether.......All of us to varying degrees are just thinking "I can have whatever I want and there will always be enough" - it is sickening. Meanwhile every day people are dying in Africa because they don't have clean water to DRINK. And we are concerned about our yards here. Ridiculous.

As Westerners - and especially Americans - most of us see our basic necessities this way - like a grocery store full of unending resources without any consideration for the way that NATURE and the ENTIRE HUMAN COMMUNITY should put limits on what we consume and how often and in what ways. From that perspective, we have surely succumbed to the social conditioning that continually urges us to equate luxury with necessity, and so in our self-deception we GRIEVE when we can't water our lawns, buy our next appliance that makes our lives easier, or improve our "standard of living" etc. We experience the obstacles to reckless consumption as the loss of a BASIC NECESSITY - as a plight that forces us to act to attain e.g., a car with air conditioning with similar relentlessness as we would expect someone from Somalia to pursue the next meal.

Surely a sense of guilt isn't the answer - guilt *alone* seems to just absolve us of responsibility by giving us a cathartic sense of "see - I get it! I care!" and then, once our smitten consciences are pacified, we just turn back to our normal lives of selfish uber-consumption. So yeah, guilt isn't enough, but it sure as hell is a good start.

"For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge humanity into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil deeds, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Flee from these things!!!" (1 Tim. 6:6-11a).

Capitalistic consumption? Environmental stewardship? It's not a conservative or liberal thing. It's a Christian thing.

Three Years!!!

Happy anniversary to us (yesterday). We went out and enjoyed a delicious dinner at Rue Cler in the strangely desolate downtown Durham. The weird thing was that while there was nary a soul walking about on the streets, looking into the windows revealed that the patronage inside the shops and restaurants was quite lively! How did all those people get in there, if they're so afraid of the streets? They may have been holograms, but we resisted the urge to poke at them with our cutlery.

But before dinner we were people on a mission. It came in the form of an electronic communique, but instead of IT self-destructing in ten seconds, *I* (Sameer) self-destructed in ten seconds. For, it was a note from DHL saying that the present I had arranged to have delivered to Whitney at work - at 2 CHAPEL Drive - had instead gone to 2 CHIPLEY Court. Chipley? What the $#@!?

DHL guy 1: "Hey Earl, this here package says, it supposed-ta goto Duke Divinity School on 2 Chapel Drive... Where in tarnation is that? What the sam hill is a s-c-h-o-ol?"

DHL guy 2: "Heck if I know, Clive - let's just drop it off at this here place - it's in a different zipcode at a house steaduva school, but Chapel sounds kinda like Chipley, don't it? *Guffaw*"

Anyway, after unclenching my fist and looking around to check if anyone at divinity school could see the blackness of my heart at that particular moment, I broke the news to Whitney that I sent her something that she wasn't going to get. But oh yes she was. We decided to drive to the residence, which was in a rough part of town in a low income neighborhood in East Durham. We drove twenty minutes out of the way to the other end of town.

We drove through the neighborhood really slowly - I slid the seat back, flossed the wheel and tried to play it cool, bobbing my head in a hip-hop sort of way and looking tough, even though there wasn't any music playing in the car. As we rolled up on the house, we saw our package neatly laying against the front door of 2 CHIPLEY court. We got out of the car, and walked up to the door like we was just chillin' - but then we grabbed it from the doorstep and hustled back toward the car as some high school boys came up the street looking at us like, "Uh-uh, No you DID-NT!" But yes we did. We drove it home and got out the scissors and opened the box. And this is what was inside. Isn't it lovely?

Citrus

Sometimes Sameer likes to make fresh squeezed juice. I like it when he does this - especially when he shares.

Yard Work is Hard Work

We don't love our yard yet (although we like the view) - it mainly consists of hard clay, tons of rocks and black beetles that hop. How do you like our patio? It's a little small.

Countdown to Extinction

Well, we just returned from a long unproductive day of car shopping. It seems that for the past few weeks, we have spent every minute of our free time -- plus stealing several hours of NON-free time from more important things -- trying to find our first good car. By "good" I mean something with fewer than 160,000 miles on it with an engine that doesn't sound like a boot in a washing machine, all the external mirrors are still atached to the car, the trunk opens, and prayer that it won't explode when you get on the freeway is not absolutely necessary (although its never a bad idea).

In any case, after squandering several weekends already encountering very unreliable cars and even more unreliable car salesmen, after Whitney spent countless hours hunting down leads on the Internet and running loan calculators every night after work, after I went from being a month ahead to being a week behind in my coursework -- we were determined. WE ARE ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT A DOUBT GOING TO DRIVE HOME IN OUR NEW (TO US) CAR TODAY!!!

So after a loooong morning at a local dealership, we took a 45 minute drive to a dealership in a neighboring city to see a Hyundai that seemed very promising (i.e., not a ticking time-bomb, see above), and we were very hopeful that this would be the car. The manager had called us that morning to tell us that he would be getting it ready for us to look at it and we had reviewed the Carfax, which looked really clean. So when we finally got there and talked to the sales people, we were almost positive that this would be our car, and we were on the verge of celebrating as we drove out to the lot to give it a once-over. The whole thing went over great... except the fact that they had already sold it to someone else 10 minutes before we arrived...

Utterly dejected and forlorn, we did what anyone would do - we bought two rakes and a bottle of wine... oh yeah, and a shovel. Anything to redeem the day.

P.S. The rakes are to prepare our barren yard for some much needed professional aeration and seeding. The shovel is to bury the bodies of a few used car salesmen. If you've read this far with anything like an empathic heart you know very well what the wine is for --- to drown our sorrows.

P.P.S. "What have you been driving if you don't have a car?" you ask? A good friend has been letting us borrow his 1989 Honda... the odometer reads 249,000 and counting and every time I look at another mile roll by on the counter, I think the following:

"Dang, Sameer, remember Megadeath's album Countdown to Extinction? Man, I pray that when this thing finally does explode on the freeway that my brain doesn't start playing "Symphony of Destruction" in my head. I hate it when bad speed metal (forgive the redundancy) gets stuck in my head. Actually, I think I'd rather have *actual* metal stuck in my head, which is I guess what would happen if this thing DID in fact explode right now..."

P.P.P.S. Okay now I'm rambling. And we haven't even popped the cork on that wine yet!!!

Autumn at last

1 point for Durham - good Farmer's Markets!

We should have just left the eggplant on the table;

it was much prettier there.

I'll leave the eggplant recipes to the experts.

New blog

Yay! Catherine has a blog!

My trip

Some people shouldn't drive while talking on a cell phone. Apparently I shouldn't walk while talking on a cell phone. Yesterday morning as I was making the long trek from the parking lot to the Divinity School I was talking to Sameer on the phone. I had just been telling him how tired I was when I started flying forward. I tried to stop and catch myself and figure out what has happening and why my legs were way behind. The next second I was face down a good few feet ahead of my last step. My phone flew out of my hand and broke into 3 pieces and both my shoes were off my feet way behind me. This was quite embarassing - and yet so funny I just had to share it. I really have no idea how it happened.