I'll Stop Shaving Now

Attention, anybody who has ever accused me of becoming too left-coast!

I am going to LILITH FAIR this summer

in George, Washington.

You heard me. You couldn't really call me a lefty until now. It's like a feminist bonanza!

I'll be trekking 'cross the mountain with five of my favorite people. For example...

The Awkward Blogger. Known to some as SPU Librarian-in-Training, but to me she is the most prolific storyteller of them all. One time she told a story about a miniskirt, and it's all I can do not to tell everybody I know. She's that awesome.

Also hopping in the minivan is this delightful creature. The goddess of fine cookware and the friend everybody wants to have when getting married/having a baby/existing. I expect fine snacks from Queen Ice Cream. She is also a therapist, so she can judge you whilst serving you dinner!

Overall-wearing, Eastside-dwelling mommy of a boy named after someone famous. Once she was my boss, and even though that job was not remotely my calling, we stay friends. Especially because her child is friggin' cute.

Again, my friends are awesome. Best friend and former roommate extraordinaire, this Ta-Ta Saver will likely provide several coolers full of white sangria for the festivities. She will probably find a way to include tofu in the recipe, and we will actually like it! She also gags a lot. I sometimes think she's faking it until I realize that she isn't.

The leader of our pack and much cooler than this haircut would suggest, our Mighty Mommy. She drives a red-hot minivan, gives thrifty a whole new meaning and loves to interpret weird dreams.

So that's the crew! Stay tuned to hear about our very exciting, inter-generational road trip.

when you don't know where to start, sometimes it's easier not to start at all.

And that's what I've been thinking the last three days...I have NO idea where to begin, so I will just procrastinate.

El Salvador. It was great. I made dear friends, learned more about community development (and economic development, in snippets), ate lots of food, took lots of Imodium in response to the food, planted cilantro (holla), watched mothers write their own names for the very first time, and met a nun from Jersey.

I also realized that my hunch about having Seasonal Affect Disorder--that hunch is probably legit.

But for now, let's talk about these beauties...



Here I am with a founding member of the village, plus my two favorite retirees and our kick ass translator, Nely:



Don't worry, I stole him for an afternoon in the hammock...but his grandma's pretty cute too, so I gave him back.


NOTE: The people on my team were really convinced that my love of cute babies would translate into a pregnancy about three weeks into being married. As much as I tried, I could not convince them otherwise.

Heart. Breakers. Jairon. Dany. Juan Carlos.



Her name is Paz, and after playing catch for about ten minutes, she proudly announced that I'm her best friend. She's ten and loves to read books, but doesn't have any books at home...and she probably won't go to school past sixth grade since the road to the city is so bad. And the government keeps promising a new road, one that might give Paz a shot at middle school, maybe even high school. But it's not looking good. So for now we bring books, and we read with her. And we hope that Agros can help with that road...
The boys are pretty cute too--Diego's on the left. They call him Siego Diego, and ordinarily I would discourage that kind of teasing, but since he's such a sass...I decided to feign ignorance (No EntiENDo).



So, there's a taste...