Faith and Politics

The topic of how our faith should influence our politics has been in the news and commentaries over the past week. Here's a sampling of what two sides of the issue are saying:

Sojourners has a new blog! It's called God's Politics and is contributed to by Jim Wallis, as well as other prominent Christian voices like Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo. There were lots of posts this week, but my favorite post was from Diana Butler
The topic of her post was the launching of a group called Red Letter Christians, whose goal is to be "Christians who take the whole of Jesus’ teachings seriously in our spiritual and public lives—even the difficult bits of the Beatitudes like "blessed are the poor" and "blessed are the peacemakers.""
When asked if there were any Republicans in the group, she said,

I shared that I am currently a registered Democrat and that I was born to a Democratic family. However (and in correct chronological order), I have been a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, a Republican, a Democrat, a Republican very briefly, and once again a Democrat (maybe the journalist should ask me the same question five years from now!). But then, the ultimate confession: One of my proudest possessions is a personal letter from Senator Barry Goldwater (yes, “Mr. Conservative”) congratulating me on being Arizona Teen-Age Republican of the Year in 1976!

After reflecting on the answer however, she thought,

I now realize that my confession should have extended just one more sentence: “Yes, I’ve worn all these political labels—depending on issues at stake and candidates in races—but throughout my checkered political history, one label has never changed: Christian; I am a Christian, and all those other labels are secondary to my baptismal journey to live the teachings of Jesus.”

The point of Sojourners and Red Letter Christians is that our faith MUST influence our politics. CNN commentator Lou Dobbs sees where this influence can go too far and laments the mixing of religion and politics:

As in election years past, [political parties] are going to have a lot of help [getting people out to vote], and not just from PACs, labor unions and 527 groups like MoveOn and Progress for America. Oh no, we're going to be treated to something akin to, and as close as we should expect to get to, divine intervention. Evangelical Christians, Jews, Catholics, Muslims and Mormons are already getting rowdy, not only on their respective pulpits, but in the mail, on the air and certainly on the campaign trails.

Dobbs goes on to talk about how dozens of churches are being investigated by the IRS for making political statements (which isn't allowed under their tax-exempt, church status). I think he has a point. When religion and politicking mix, and churches are supporting one candidate or another and becoming political within their supposedly-faith-based walls, there's a problem. Faith informing social action (that may include being involved in government) seems like a subtle change from what Dobbs describes, but means a world of difference.

BONUS: Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels on faith

Good Design

I whipped out my teapot and I made a whole pot of loose-leaf jasmine tea at work today. It was wonderful. I would have taken a picture of the tea in the glass mug and glass teapot, except my phone battery is low and the camera refuses to turn on.

The tagline of the company that makes my teapot is "Give Up Bad Design for Good", which reminds me of my Human Computer Interaction class and the book we had to read about good design in all things (not just computer programs). That book had a coffee pot on the cover. I suppose it could have been a teapot. (By the way, I don't normally suggest textbooks as good reading, but The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman was thought-provoking and makes you look at everyday products in a different way. It's worth picking up. The book was quoted recently by a Google engineer talking about design decisions for Blogger. I thought that was cool.)

In other news, my pitas disappeared from the fridge this morning. I suppose I haven't looked for them since Wednesday, but I looked all over the kitchen and couldn't find them. I know I had at least a couple left... It was disappointing. Oh! and I am looking forward to a game of Apples to Apples with coworkers over lunch today.

In the news

Big Noblesville church is going to get bigger
The church discussed in the article is my home church for the 8 or 9 years. I love it. Some would say, it's big enough, why build, why become a 'mega-church'. I appreciate, however, Grace's philosophy of growth. They don't want to be a mega-church. As it is, people get lost and overwhelmed in the crowd. Most churches, when they build a new sanctuary, double the size, or more, in hopes of being able to fill it. Grace, on the other hand, chose to build a new sanctuary about 50% bigger than the current one, but set up differently such that everyone feels closer to the front of the church. With the new sanctuary, the old auditorium will be split into 2 auditoriums for the jr. and sr. high groups. Larger, more appropriate worship rooms are being built for the kids classes too.
The kids' rooms were actually first priority, because they're the ones most hurting for space. It's really heartbreaking to have to turn parents (especially first-time visitors) away and not allowing them to drop their kids at Sunday School because they're full- by law, a certain student-teacher ratio has to be maintained, and there's a limit on the number of kids per room for different ages, 30ish for 5-year-olds, 8 for infants. And, believe me, the rooms at Grace regularly fill up. Once we make room for more kids, we gotta make room for more parents, which is where the new sanctuary comes in. Once that's built, that will create space elsewhere in the church to have more (rather than larger) services. A 1600-person modern worship service isn't for everyone. Smaller, more intimate services like Sojourn and Centro Cristiano de Celebracion will now have a more permanent place to meet. More people will be reached because the variety of service styles will speak into where they're at and how they meet God.
I went on longer than I meant to. Read more about the Grace Imagine initiative here.

Children of slain pregnant mother found dead
This is obviously a tragic story, but there's one thing that confuses me. From the article:

The children were last seen Monday with family friend Tiffany Hall, 24, now charged with first-degree murder in the death of their mother, who is believed to have been slain days before her children disappeared.
Hall is also charged with intentional homicide of an unborn child, prosecutor Robert Haida said.

If "intentional homicide of an unborn child" is a crime, shouldn't, logically, abortion be too? What's he legal difference, I wonder? The mother's wishes?

That's all for now. I'm off to showering and cooking, and perhaps a Sunday afternoon nap. We might hit the Carmel International Arts Festival later as well.

Audience participation

OK, so I guess maybe I've been bored. I'm ready for a change and kinda want a new banner. I went through all my photographs I have, and picked/cut out pictures of feet, and put the title of my blog on them. I'll put the Tolkien quote below as text. I thought about just having one of the pictures randomly load when the blog is loaded, but thought that would get annoying for dial-up users. Therefore, I need more artistic input than my own to choose a new banner.

These are the pictures I came up with:

keeping feet

Sep 6, 2006 - 16 Photos

I'll admit, the GIMP frustrates the heck out of me, so these were created in Paintbrush... I know, it's bad.

Let me know what you think. To make it a fun game: How many people can you identify by their feet?!

Kitchen experiments

Dinner tonight was an experiment for me- a chicken pot pie. This is one of my favorite meals my mom would cook, so I decided to try my hand at it. My mom had given me a recipe, but not specified how to make the crust (my favorite part!), so I went hunting for another recipe that included a crust. I coulda sworn I had one, but couldn't find it, so settled on one using refrigerator biscuits as a topping. That was disappointing, but I gave it a shot anyway. After finding the recipe, I made the white sauce as it directed but kinda threw in whatever vegetables we had on hand. I steamed carrots in my new rice cooker, cooked potatoes, and threw in frozen corn, peas, and green beans, because it sounded like a good idea. It ended up being a much quicker meal than I anticipated, and healthy, too, with all the vegetables.

The results: Overall, a pretty good meal. Next time, I'm going to leave out the green beans, and steam the carrots a little longer. I'm also going to research a good crust recipe, since the biscuits on top were OK but I prefer a flaky crust all around.

Not to be outdone, Josh cooked up his favorite treat- pudding cake- and we ate it with Cool Whip and it was a yummy for dessert. The 'pudding cake' tastes very much like cake covered in hot fudge. I liked it.

I'm going to experiment tomorrow with a pizza crust recipe I found online- I've been using a Jiffy pizza crust mix and it's turned out bready, and I prefer a chewy crust. Hopefully my experiment will turn out well. The recipe makes like 6 crusts, I think I will cut it in half then freeze a couple balls of dough. We'll see. It's an adventure :)

All my other adventures are getting rained out this weekend, so I'm not sure how much I'll have to report come Monday.

Behind the times

Apparently, our household is behind the times. A new survey found that the average home (of 2.55 people) has 2.73 television sets. Yes, that's more televisions than people in the average American home. Josh and I are only 2 people, but keeping with that proportion, to keep up with the Joneses, we'd would need 2.14 TVs. As it is, we have one, and I watch it about once a week. Seriously.

The once-a-week that I watched it this week was yesterday, for about 15 minutes. I had gotten word that my favorite political author and activist Jim Wallis was going to be on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. Not only was I looking forward to seeing Wallis, I had an excuse to see Couric at her new gig, who I used to watch every morning before school on the Today show. The segment actually reminded me of the parody on the Daily Show, This Week in God, but that's besides the point. I was glad that someone was giving an alternative voice to the often-caricatured group 'Evangelical Christians'. The other interviewee in the segment is Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council. The interviews with the two leaders were done separately, and the clips mixed together. Wallis advocates that Christians care for more issues than just gay marriage and abortion- the almost-exclusively emphasized issues of the Religious Right.
From the CBS article:, Wallis' points summed up:

"The evangelists were abolitionists. They led the battle against slavery. They were revivalists and reformers. They fought for womenÂ's suffrage. They fought for child labor laws," Wallis says. "I want to build the same kind of social movements today. That means global poverty, it means Darfur, it means HIV/AIDS, it means global warming."

Perkins is more narrowly focused:

But Tony Perkins, president of the politically powerful Family Research Council, argues that abortion and gay marriage are the driving concerns for most evangelicals.

"I think more and more people are standing on our side, on the side of sanctity of human life, the preservation of marriage," Perkins says. "I don't mind having these debates because when the truth is on your side, you ultimately win."

More about 'taking sides':

[Perkins says]"People are going to have to stand on one side or the other. These are decisions that you can'’t stand in the middle," Perkins says.

He considers Wallis an extreme. "I consider him to be on the left. I'’m no more extreme on the right than he is on the left. I mean, he'’s out there," Perkins adds.

Wallis considers himself, however, to be square dab in the middle.

"Well, you know what'’s usually in the middle are dead cats and skunks that have been run over. That's usually what'’s in the middle of the road," Perkins says.

Yeah, real mature, calling your fellow Christians dead, flattened skunks...
That's one of the main things that irks me about many leaders of the Religious Right. They paint a good-guys-bad-guys, black-and-white picture, as if there is no 'middle' or the middle is a bad place to be. This narrow view of our-side-their-side also narrows the litmus test issues they discuss and act upon, causing many really important issues to go undiscussed.

Watch the whole clip here:

Little Joys

Josh took me out to breakfast this morning and drove me to work and we got to watch the sun rise.

A couple Blue Jays have decided to sing and hop around outside the office window the last few days.

I just fixed myself a cup of Bigelow Sweet Dreams tea.

All these things make me smile.

Death by Suburb

My weekend stories are going to be in reverse order today...

This week's service at Sojourn (which Matt & Alisse joined us for!) was powerful. Probably my favorite ever. Specifically, it was about the Beatitudes, why Jesus would have called each of these groups blessed, and why us in the mid-to-upper-class suburbs have a hard time understanding. Dave Rod spoke (live!) and emphasized why the groups of people are blessed now, not just a as future promise for a reward in heaven. Some highlights:

• The Poor are blessed because they are ready to hear and enter into the Kingdom of God more than most- they have urgent need, they know they can't rely on themselves or on things, they don't think highly of themselves, their fears are realistic, and they know the difference between a Need and a Want. Us rich suburban folk, on the other hand, fail in all those areas.


• The Meek - "Today meekness doesn't cut it," said Dave Rod. I can't expect to be meek and make it anywhere in this world- not in business, not is social circles- I'm supposed to demand my rights, speak up, be assertive. Meekness is foreign to us.


• The Merciful- A powerful example why us suburbians don't understand this: On the per-capita income ranking, Mississippi is dead last, and Conneticut is at the top of the list. When you check out the charitable giving ranks, Mississippi's at the top, and Conneticut's way down at the bottom. How can this be explained? Those that need mercy and have received it understand the importance of giving it. Those that need mercy are often the most merciful. You get in the suburbs and run into the most merciless creature of all: The Suburban Soccer Parent Guy, who has no mercy for the refs, the coaches, the other team's kids, HIS team's kid, and, sadly, his own kid.


• Just as I was ready to ask (because in Sojourn, we always have a discussion), So, what do we do with all this, if we happen not to be poor, mourning, actively persecuted, etc? It came up, and I appreciate the answer. Some of these things, we shouldn't aspire to, but this passage can bring us comfort when we do find ourselves there. When we are there, we are that much closer and ready to enter the Kingdom of God.

The book Death By Suburb was quoted in the service, and I looked at the website today and decided I want to read it. Not so much because I think it's wrong to live in the suburbs- no geographic location can be inherently wrong- but, having been here a while, I see the spiritual danger in getting caught up in the clothes and houses and cars and shallow image that pervades the landscape- the book calls them "Suburban immortality Symbols".

All this discussion Sunday morning was very ironic since, the night before, we had been at a fancy party chock-full of Suburban immortality Symbols. Everyone was dressed to impress everyone else. (I did my best...) There were cocktails and hors d'vores being served by tuxedo-clad waiters while guests mingled. The entertainment was a magician flown in from Las Vegas to impress us with close-up magic. The even setting was refined- the Nancy Noel art gallery I mentioned last weekend. ... And I admit, I fell for it. I was all about image for the night. I wanted to be seen by the refined people I was surrounded by, and pretend like I was part of their world. I'm ashamed to say that the highlight of my night was when a couple other ladies- complete strangers- complimented my dress. I was noticed and approved of, and that made me glad.
The party was a fun adventure, and I was glad I went. It was fun to pretend for a night, and gave me an excuse to dress up. Most of all, I liked people-watching this segment of the population that I don't normally interact with.

The rest of Saturday was almost the opposite of the evening. Where one event seemed to be all about personal image and propriety, the rest of the day was casual fun and community. We ventured to Lebanon first for a dog show where we saw Seth and Amber with Connor and Anna. After lunch with that bunch, we headed to Lebanon's downtown to peruse the Back to the Fifties festival. Elvis was there, as well as poodle-skirt-clad girls. Activities for the kids included playing with the much-loved parachute, petting farm animals, and romping in inflatable games. My big-kid husband and brother-in-laws preferred the car show. As for my favorite part: The library book sale. I picked up a little-known Dr Seuss book for adults entitled The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough.

And that's my non-linear weekend story. If I do pick up the Death By Suburb book, I'm sure you'll hear more about it. I appreciated the thoughts at church, and its something more I want to explore, I think.

See the rest of the weekend pictures:

Sep 10, 2006 - 32 Photos

Popeye is sad

Can you hear the cheers coming from elementary schools? No More Spinach! they exclaim happily.

Personally, I like cooked spinach but not raw spinach leaves. I was eating at Bub's Saturday, ordered a salad, and much to my dismay there were dark, non-Romaine lettuce leaves along wit the recognizable Iceberg lettuce. I avoided them as much as possible (because I didn't like them anyway) and I didn't get sick.

Sunday we ate at CiCi's and a lady asked if they were going to make any spinach and cheese pizzas for the buffet (one of my favorites) only to get the response "We don't have any spinach in the building." I think she felt silly for asking, once she realized the situation.

More exciting things besides Encountering Spinach happened this weekend. I'll get to those later.

Why I can program...

And Johnny can't.

Salon has a good article on the accessibility of learning programming for kids today vs. when I was growing up and before. The problem today, says the article, is that there's no easily available, simple language to learn. I started with QBASIC in 4th grade, a language that came standard in DOS and I thought was pretty cool. I could make it play music, draaw shapes on the screen, write text-based games. I had a lot of fun with it. More importantly, I learned basic programming constructs- like IF statements, loops, random numbers, and some semblence of functions- at an early age. The great part was, any computer had this language and a way to write and run programs through Windows 95-ish. When I was in my 7th-grade computer applications class, I would get done with my assignments very early, then open up QBASIC and make my own colorful screen saver or have my computer play music on the lab computers with no speakers, making everyone turn and look. While computer today are definitely easier to use for children, and therefore they are able to become users at a younger age, programming isn't as available.

The article also discusses how many math textbooks would make programming more accessible to kids by including a BASIC program with the lesson, so students could learn both the concept and how a computer would implement it. The only textbook I had with this was in jr high, and I definitely went and tried out the factoring-a-polynomial program, and much to my delight, it worked and made homework go much faster. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can properly factor a polynomial on paper...


Wanna try it out yourself? Wanna save QBASIC for future generations?
Download QBASIC and the help file.

Coming later this weekend: Reports of adventures at another dog show, a Lebanon festival, and a fancy party. Bonus: Lunch with friends on Sunday!

Remember.

I was in Economics class that fateful Tuesday morning, my senior year of high school. We were in a different classroom than usual, because half the school (my sister included) was taking ISTEPs (Indiana graduation exams). A teacher popped her head in and told us to turn on the TV. We were watching when the towers fell. We didn't have class that day. Only my math class actually tried to cover material. No official announcement at school was made until ISTEPs were over for the day- at lunchtime. They didn't want to upset the sophomores and other students trying to concentrate on the test they had to pass to graduate.
The school was silent.

The day didn't hit me hardest till 3 months later.
12/11/01 was the day I boarded a bus with a group of students and staff, headed for downtown New York City. We were on a dual mission- as ambassadors of our school to a 'sister school' that was located caddy-corner from the WTC complex, and as help for Student Venture, a Campus Crusade ministry that was trying to reach out to students affected by the tragedy in their backyard.
And then there was the night we went to Ground Zero. The dust was still in the air. I saw workers hosing off store awnings, trying to remove the layer of dust, trying to make things look 'normal'. The makeshift memorial we all saw on TV, on the chain link fence alongside Ground Zero, was not just on TV for me anymore, but right there in front of me. Workers went to and from the area of fenced-off debris. While we were there, they were working to take down the last, largest remaining piece of the buildings. Sparks flew.

The most poignant moment, however, was when I stood next to a guy from the New York high school- a couple had come with us. (It was their first time back to Ground Zero since 9/11.) He pointed to a spot in the air: "We watched as the second plane hit, right there." (He pointed to a building still standing) "We thought the explosion hit that building too."
Later on, I was standing back from the group, taking everything in, as the group was up at a fence, down an alley, looking at the destruction. One of the NYC high schoolers was near me, the other was also away from the group, pacing the alley. I somewhat insensitively asked, "What's wrong with him? Is he OK?" His friend said, "His uncle died in those buildings."

These were real people, really affected. Kids my age. I wonder where they are today, 5 years later.

I dug around for pictures from the trip. They aren't all mine:

NY Dec 2001

Dec 12, 2001 - 17 Photos

Other links to help Remember:
The 9/11 Report: A graphic adaptation - More readable than the government's text version.

CNN - rebroadcasting news reports from 5 years ago, as they happened throughout the day. I tried to watch these at about 12:30, and couldn't do it. I can't put my finger on why. Remembering was hard. (I watched CNN's live camera feed of Atlanta's newest panda instead. It's somewhat comforting)

A Park and a Parade

Last night, Josh and I took advantage of free entertainment and cultural experience and went to the grand opening of Coxhall Gardens, Carmel's newest park, out on the west side of town. All I knew about it was that the land was donated by a rich couple, the Coxes, and that the grand opening last night was featuring a free outdoor concert of the Indianapolis Jazz Orchestra, in the amphitheater that I saw on TV during last year's Solheim Cup.
I was very impressed when I got there. We had a nice picnic in the amphitheater, then I went to explore while Josh stayed and listened to the music. The first thing I noticed was the statue of the Coxes at the top of the amphitheater, arm-in-arm, coming to hear a concert. The quote underneath the statue: "An oasis in a sea of homes." I loved that quote. I was the perfect description of this place, and a perfect description of what Carmel needs. The grounds were gorgeous. The flowers had been planted recently enough that the gardens weren't lush yet, but you could see how beautiful they will be next spring. One of the most delightful parts of the gardens was the Children's Garden, that included playhouses> and areas to climb, a couple slides, and mazes and tunnels made of plants, which I thought were very cool. It will obviously be cooler when the plants are grown up.
The centerpiece of the park is not the Children's Garden, however, but the matching bell towers at either end of the park. Unlike Taylor's bell tower, these have real bells.
All that said, the thing that really impressed me was the attention to detail all over the park. I love being able to look very closely and still see hidden details. The park was so obviously a labor of love and a tribute from Jesse Cox to his late wife Beulah. It was very beautiful.

View the whole album:

Coxhall Gardens

Sep 9, 2006 - 41 Photos

Today's adventure was going one town to the west to Zionsville for their Lion's Club Fall Festival parade. I'll admit, I didn't actually go to the fall festival because parking was $3 and I was all about free events this weekend, and I didn't stay for the entire parade because I was getting hot in the sun and didn't have anyone to talk to. My primary goals for the trip to Zionsville were (1) to see the new Nancy Noel studio that Anne works at on Saturdays and (2) to see our friend from our small group play the accordion in the parade.
Nancy Noel is a local artist known nationally for her paintings. She just opened a new studio in Zionsville inside a renovated church. The outside is a very unassuming looking old church. The inside is truly a sanctuary. I wandered in about 20 minutes after they opened, and was the only customer in the main room. Music was playing softly and echoing in the high ceiling. I was surrounded by paintings of angels and Amish children. It was somewhat surreal. I then went in search of Anne, who gave me more of a tour. It was very fun. Sooner than I liked, however, I left the church to make sure to not miss the parade.

Besides the crowds, the first signs of festivities I saw was the old-time band playing along the side of the street. There was an accordion player in this band, but not my friend. Our friend rode in the parade, on a convertible for the library. It was neat to see him. I waved. He saw me. I felt special. On the way back to my car, I caught pictures of quaint houses and gardens. Zionsville as a whole can be very well summed up as 'quaint'. There's not much else to be said.
Check out all the pictures from today:

Zionsville

Sep 10, 2006 - 20 Photos

Another kitchen milestone

So, I was excited that I had accomplished the feat of baking bread last week. This week my next step was whipping up meatloaf after work, before Josh got home. I deviated from the recipe in front of me, and I wasn't so sure how it was going to turn out, but Josh's review was favorable. A quote from my husband: "This is probably the best meatloaf I've ever had, seriously." Hooray.
Before the Oven:

After the oven:

The Recipe:
Easy Meatloaf
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 C dry bread crumbs
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 C onion, minced (I didn't use this. We don't have any, and I don't like it anyway.)
- 1/4 C green pepper, diced (same as the onion.)
- 1 t. salt
- 1/4 t. pepper
- 2 C tomato sauce (This was 1 can.)
- I found another recipe that suggested adding thyme, so I threw some in.

Combine ground beef, bread crumbs, eggs, green pepper, onion, salt, pepper, and 1 C tomato sauce. Use hands to knead the mixture unti lit is well combined (This is the fun part! You HAVE to use your hands.) Shape into loaf (Notice I used a small glass casserole dish, because we don't have loaf pans. The recipe doesn't say what pan to use.) and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Pour remaining 1 C tomato sauce over loaf (I probably poured 1/2 to 2/3 C, I didn't use the rest of the can. i was afraid my dish would overflow.) and bake 30 minutes longer. Slice and serve immediately.

Of course, we had mashed potatoes with meatloaf- there's no other way to eat it- and I've got making those down pat.

Coming tomorrow: Pictures and stories from Coxhall Gardens and Zionsville Fall Festival

Microsoft on the road

While on our way to lunch today, there was an SUV in th parking lot. It was covered with Windows Live Local decals (Microsoft's answer to Google Maps) and had large cameras pointing every which way on the top of it. The SUV was from Minnesota, from a company called Facet Technology Corporation. My guess? Little Carmel, Indiana is getting the street level view on Windows Live Local that Microsoft is promising. Cool.

Check out what I caught with my camera phone:
 
  

The long weekend

It's been a great weekend.

Friday was fun. When we got home from work, Josh did the cooking, and was determined to try a recipe described by one of his coworkers as Amazing. Her last day at the bank was Saturday, so we HAD to try it Friday night so he could report back to her the results. Well, turns out she was right and the chicken was delicious (The recipe was, marinate the chicken in Ken's Steak House Zesty Italian dressing, grill the chicken, then sprinkle red pepper and feta cheese on it. Josh requested we take a picture this time. Although this Friday night was somewhat less social than the previous few, we had a great time. Josh assembled a new filing cabinet we got. We played dominoes.

Saturday morning, Josh had to work. We went to breakfast at Le Peep- "The Next Best Thing to Breakfast in Bed is Le Peep". I ran errands all morning till Josh was off, one of which was (finally) getting a (long-overdue) haircut. Not wanting to end up with too-short hair like Ashley said she did, I was conservative when I described what I wanted, but I still got 5 inches cut off. I like it (though perhaps not this picture). Saturday night, we went to Sojourn and met up with a couple from our small group, who invited us over to their house for a bonfire. It was a really delightful time, making a fire and making smores and seeing their house and garden. Good company.


Sunday was nice and lazy, a far cry from the day 3 months before, which was not so much 'lazy'. We decided to celebrate our 3 month anniversary by doing really cool things like walking around the mall, going to see Lassie, and going to Champps for dinner. While walking around the mall, we went into The Discovery Channel Store (I'm a sucker for science toys & gadgets) and they were giving out "I <3 Pluto" buttons, referring to the demotion of Pluto, and the subsequent protests. I guess I'm now a small part of that protest... Anyway, we headed to the arts theater in the mall (As far as I can tell, Lassie isn't showing in mainstream theaters. I can't imagine why.) to see the movie. I had heard about it via a review in Slate, and, being the dog lover that I am, was very excited to see it. I wasn't disappointed. The reviewer said she about cried twice, as did both Josh and I. Great movie. We had dinner then came home and played online Boggle with the aforementioned couple from our small group. Hooray.

Today we have friends coming over for dinner. Tomorrow I'm going to give yoga a try at the church.

Other things of interest in the news:
--Our apartment complex is sold and getting renovated. Yay. The previous owner is tearing down another of their older complexes, and building in its place 1800's-Manhattan-style apartments. Ours didn't fall to that fate, at least. I'm looking forward to the painting and improvements here. The outside can start to look as nice as the inside.

--Steve Irwin, the 'Crocodile Hunter', was killed by a sting ray today. As a young animal lover, I was always entertained by his antics, though I preferred the quieter, more serious documentary-style shows. I appreciated what he did to bring to light some conservation issues. It's sad. The freak thing is, sting rays don't kill people, typically. A sting just about anywhere else on his body, and he would have been OK, but this one got scared, whipped his tail up, and the spine on the end went straight into Irwin's heart, putting the poison in exactly the wrong place. the official statement is at www.crocodilehunter.com

Taylor crash update

Couple things:

• Classes start at Taylor in a few days, and I won't be going back, but Whitney's already there! I have to imagine it must be unreal for her friends there, who left mourning her loss, to see her in the DC and classes again! There will be celebration as the Taylor community comes back together over the next few days. Check out the chapel in the background of that picture. It's a happy sight..


• The Indianapolis Star is reporting that Grant County prosecutors are filing charges against the truck driver in the crash. Witnesses assumed the truck driver had fallen asleep at the wheel, when he drifted across the median without attempting to brake or turn back, but the investigation is showing a different picture: The truck driver "used his cell phone at 7:57 p.m. to call his sister, Nicole Spencer. Their cell phone connection ended at 8:12 p.m., several minutes after the crash, according to investigators." Local news station WTHR also has the story. WTHR has had the best, most sensitive coverage of the whole Taylor-crash story. The meteorologist at the station is an Taylor parent.