It’s been forever since I posted here and life is still such a whirlwind that I don’t think I’ll be updating regularly in the foreseeable future.  That said, I had another interesting Baltimore interaction on Friday that I have to jot down, more for the benefit of my cluttered memory than anything else.  The Michael Jackson outpouring of all kinds of public sentiment has dominated the news in the last few days, and I know it will all blow over in a few more – these things have a more predictable lifespan than any person’s actual lifespan.  I don’t want to weigh in with personal feelings, mainly because I don’t really have any.  I was less than a year old when Thriller was released, and by the time I even cared about music, Jackson had been supplanted by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and my penchant for ill-fitting jeans.

In my little take on the world, this whole event would have been reduced to yet another example of celebrity culture gone awry –a kid growing up in the limelight, the eventual downfall, and then the public’s sudden turnaround of grief and fawning when an unexpected death occurs.  Quite predictable, really, except after his death was announced, even I was surprised by what I experienced on the city streets.

Thursday evening MJ’s death was all over the news.  Matt and I were sitting on the front porch of our house and saw the normal mix of yuppie workers trying their hand at city living (I hope we don’t fall into this category!) and people who have various levels of, um, street cred (dang it, if those are my options, I AM the yuppie professional).  We saw several tricked out cars blaring music through open windows, but instead of hip-hop, classic MJ songs were thumping for the neighborhood to enjoy.  And when I say classic, I mean like Jackson 5 or early solo career classic.  Matt and I couldn’t figure it out – 4 or 5 of these cars were occupied by groups of young men who were definitely too young to remember MJ as anything but an anomaly and pariah.  We even laughed a little bit.  You would have to see our street on a normal evening to fully understand just how surreal it is to have MJ tunes bumping on the block.

On Friday on my lunch break I walked around the neighborhoods that surround my office on the Westside.  Again, more MJ – at the storefront music label that I’m not convinced is strictly for recording deals, pouring out of a barbershop with a door open to catch any breeze at the sweltering midday.  And on the side of a boarded-up building, 4 old men around a classic car in need of some serious work were listening to MJ on a cheap little boombox.  Three men were slowly washing the car in the pulsing sun, and one sat back in a white plastic chair, sipping a sweating bottle of Coke.  My curiosity got the better of me (and fyi grandma, it was a busy street, there were plenty of pedestrians, etc.).  I walked up and said hello to the man sitting in the chair (mainly because he was the only one in the shade) and I said something about MJ passing away and that the song that was playing, ABC, was great.

The old man smiled and said “Yeah, last few years that boy been crazier than sh–.”

I’m sure I had a funny expression on my face, but fortunately the man was looking at the boombox, not at me. He shook his head a little, “But back then, he done us proud.  He done us real proud.”

I didn’t have anything to say.  I didn’t have anything I really could say – I didn’t experience the mystique of Michael when I was growing up, but more importantly, I wasn’t there to witness just how groundbreaking it was for a black man to become king of the entertainment juggernaut.  I wished the man a nice day and he replied “you too, sweetie.”  I had the song in my head the rest of the afternoon.

Nuff said.  I can’t wait for Christmas break – if only I didn’t have papers due between now and then.  *Sigh*

So I was not the most prolific blogger on my trip to Lebanon and Syria to visit Iraqi refugees.  I could give a laundry list of reasons (tops would be hit-and-miss connectivity), but I did get a couple of things up for work.  I’ve included a few links below – saves me from cutting and pasting, and you can show the CRS blog a little love ).

Bishop Audo talking about interfaith relations in Aleppo, Syria

Tour guide reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic

Reflection on visit to confidential shelter for women

Photo of super-cute little girls posing with items from their grandmother’s dry goods shop, partially funded through CRS

Recap of my first meeting with an Iraqi refugee family in their home

A couple of months ago Matt asked if I wanted to drive up to Pennsylvania with him to check out a whitewater canoe for work.  It was my first venture into Amish country and of course it was picturesque and idyllic – until I started thinking about how much work it would be to run full farms without machinery.  I’m glad there are people who carry on that traditional lifestyle, but I don’t think I have it in me.

Matt did end up purchasing the canoe, so with the boat strapped on the roof, we started back and stopped at this great (read: touristy) market/nursery for lunch.  The nursery was gorgeous and we bought our first tree for our new house, a rosebush and a butterfly bush.

Of course, all of this had to go inside the rig since the canoe was on the roof -

So after wrestling the plants inside the car, we ordered sandwiches at the market.  The store had all of these great baked goods and we couldn’t resist a black raspberry pie -

I’m sure you’ve heard enough about going out and voting, so I’ll just tell you about my experience on the bus yesterday morning.  It was packed, and I jostled my way to a standing position toward the middle.  There were a couple more Caucasian people than usual, but still, 90% of the passengers were African American (let’s hear it for living in a place with more diversity than Northern CA!).  The talk around me turned to the election, and you can probably deduce by my location in a “liberal elite” East Coast city who everyone on the bus is going to vote for today.

One of the men near me started singing a spiritual/gospel song that I’ve heard before (no idea what it really is, though), but instead of the actual lyrics, he started singing “free at last.”  A few other people joined in, but what amazed me is that they started singing lines from the entire “I Have a Dream” speech – I consider myself pretty progressive, but I only know highlights of the speech.  This group was singing entire paragraphs – and they were good!  I couldn’t believe how a group of strangers pulled together and freestyled a MLK speech to a gospel tune swaying on a city bus on a Monday morning.  I’m bummed I’m not riding the bus today (right now I’m on a train to DC for a conference) – I bet the excitement will be even more palpable today.

Apparently Facebook and a bunch of other websites were used by political opponents for something or other, so a bunch of sites are blocked here in Damascus.  At least from what I hear it’s not as bad as China.  I can’t write a lot because I’m way behind on actual work, and since this is a work trip I guess I should be doing that!  Lebanon was beautiful, and Syria is beautiful too in its own desert-y way.  I’ve been meeting some amazing people who are working to make the lives of Iraqi refugees and other marginalized people a little easier – I’ll make sure to post links to some blogging I’m doing for work when those posts go live.  And even though I wouldn’t walk around wearing an American flag shirt here, people have been surprisingly gracious to us given current events.

One of the more unusual things about our very old house is that it’s missing a fence around the backyard.  Almost all of the other houses have fences, probably because rowhouses are not conducive to large yards and each owner wants to claim their full allotment of space.  The backyard also happens to be paved over into a parking pad.  Put these two things together in the middle of Baltimore and what’s the result?  Neighborhood basketball court, obviously!

We really love having the neighborhood kids hang out and do something constructive with their time, even though a few of the neighbors have expressed “concern” about the types of kids we’re “letting” hang around.  There are a lot of issues in Baltimore I don’t think would be prudent to bring up in an online forum where things turn ugly so quickly – let’s just say the city has a long history of oppression and it’s frustrating to see some of those attitudes linger under the surface.

There’s one boy who’s spent more time at our house than all the others.  E is the twitchiest bundle of energy I’ve ever seen.  He’ll be running in one direction, apparently for no reason, and mid-step he’ll think of something and start running in another direction, then get distracted again a few seconds later.  He’s the smallest boy in the group – I wouldn’t have guessed he was 12.  I have a lot of funny E stories already…hopefully I’ll be inspired to write them up sometime.

So last Friday I saw E back behind our house swinging a stick by himself.  He seemed down and wasn’t moving quite as fast as usual.  I called Matt over and asked him to make sure E was ok (Matt’s developed quite the rapport with the boys – I wish I could have found my camera fast enough the time he had 5 city kids staring down into our composter as he explained how it worked).

Turns out the ball had rolled into the bushes and E couldn’t get it – and none of the other boys would play with him that night.  Matt and E worked together to maneuver the ball out, and then Matt started shooting hoops with him.  This may seem like a small thing but Matt is not an organized sports kind of guy.  He’s in his element climbing or kayaking – it’s not pretty when he has a ball in his hands.  But he played with E….and kept playing.  I was trying not to be a creepy neighbor by watching out the window for too long, but I kept coming back to catch a glimpse of the biggest smile I’ve seen yet on E’s face.  When Colter came down and joined in the game, E could hardly contain himself.  I was so proud of them for taking the time to play with a kid who needed attention more than we probably realize.

I’m determined not to be too opinionated in the public social media scene – I’ve seen people crash and burn with one ill-conceived rant or blog post.  So, without accompanying commentary, check out Kristof’s latest in the NYT:

¶The United States has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats.

¶This year alone, the United States Army will add about 7,000 soldiers to its total; that’s more people than in the entire American Foreign Service.

¶More than 1,000 American diplomatic positions are vacant because the Foreign Service is so short-staffed, but a myopic Congress is refusing to finance even modest new hiring. Some 1,100 could be hired for the cost of a single C-17 military cargo plane.

In short, the United States is hugely overinvesting in military tools and underinvesting in diplomatic tools. The result is a lopsided foreign policy that antagonizes the rest of the world and is ineffective in tackling many modern problems.

After all, you can’t bomb global warming.

If you have the time, check out his full op-ed.

I have been looking for storage cabinets since we moved into the new house at the end of June (hampered by a lack of internet until a few days ago, the process didn’t get very far for a couple of weeks).  I’ve been combing Craig’s List and Freecycle to no avail – everything was too expensive or so cheap and worn that it wouldn’t have lasted long anyway.

So last night Jordana and I turned a corner in our neighborhood and saw 3 guys struggling with a BEAST of a wardrobe.  I made a comment about how huge it was and one of them laughed and said I could have it.  Turns out a very cool family is moving to the midwest today and the people who were supposed to buy it flaked.  It’s a bummer they won’t be in the neighborhood anymore, but I did get a really nice hardwood wardrobe for $100.  They would have given it to us but after my firsthand experience of the expense of a cross country move, I felt guilty not giving them anything.  Plus, Matt says it’s good karma.

A shoutout to the Diehl men for helping drag the monstrosity around the corner and through our very narrow doorway (the door had to come off its hinges in the end).

First of all, yay for the internet at home.  I can now googlemaps my way around the diciest parts of the city.

Last night we went to the Visionary Art Museum for a) free admission and b) a movie on the hill.  Jordana made great homemade food, I brought great store-bought food (our respective specialties).  So it was a picture perfect evening, etc., but I can’t believe I had never heard of Harold and Maude before!  In fact, none of us had, so when other people started laughing during the opening “suicide” scene, we were super awkward and sketched out.  We got over it soon enough – I chalk this discrepancy in my indie movie awareness to growing up without cable.