home-work day

We're back to the blog, briefly. Life has been soo busy with work and school (mid-term time, no tests, just assignments), but we have been thankful. Last night Tim and I got to attend our church's bicentennial gala at the Westin. 200 years Park Street Church has been alive in Boston - in the same building even! What a crazy thing. Most churches in the centers of quaint New England towns today are dead or transformed into museums or coffee shops - it's a rarity to find such a vibrant and growing body in the center of Boston. We are loving being a part of it. Anyone can listen to Gordon's sermons online if interested!

We got to reconnect with our friends, Mitch and Rebekah, who so graciously invited us over on Christmas to share a meal. Again last night we were dined with a great menu, finished with this chocolate opera torte topped with edible gold!

Today is a much needed free day to catch up homework in the literal and academic sense. It will consist of muddling through my assignments, cleaning the apartment, running on the Charles River, a haircut, and a much-needed trip to the grocery store. Gotta love the end/beginning of the month! I'm tempted to move into the library today, but I'm actually going to enjoy a day at home and a day of sunshine through the windows before a small snowstorm arrives tomorrow:) Miss you all!

weekend of love...and graves

Lots of this weekend was filled with love, hearts shooting out of heads, chocolate and quality together time for me and Tim. I decorated our apartment with paper hearts for festivity.
Then we went on a dinner date near our apartment and tried (among other things) an earl grey vodka martini with lemon and egg whites (which was actually really yummy!).

We also ventured to the Harvard Natural History museum to see glass flowers sculpted in the late 1800's by a German vater-sonn duo. These things looked REAL! Not at all like glass. The artists were commissioned by Harvard back in the day to create 3-D life-like botanical specimens for science study. The pressed, discolored 2-D real life versions just weren't cutting it.

Yep, it's glass. Take THAT, Chihuly! 100 years ago!

This one's for Roxie and other desert-dwellers

This one's for Abbie and those other biology invertebrate lovers (it's not flora, but the artists started by making glass invertebrate specimens and then moved to botany).

Outside the museum we enjoyed sights of Harvard. Our highlight:

We finally learned where Pooh lives! He must be way smarter than he looks.

The other half of our Valentine weekend was a little creepier. We visited a huge cemetery for our winter hike fix. We didn't make it to our original destination because of a mishap with the bus schedules, so the alternative was Forest Hills Cemetery. e.e. cummings is buried there, and he was our token valentine's day author (see previous post).
We liked this creepy tree,

but weren't sure what to think of this one dressed in its night gown (way creepier),

or this family of trees sleep walking or something??

Actually, there is an art exhibit throughout the cemetery, and these nightgown-dressed trees are supposed to be celebrating the spirit of trees...which just end up looking really weird. You'd think if you were going to add art to a cemetery, you wouldn't play on the morbidity theme. Maybe we should have added some of the German guys' glass flowers for a happier atmosphere.

There were nicer parts, like the main entrance:

And some tombstones:

Kind of a nice way to spend a sunny, crisp winter day wandering, hand in hand. A realization to seize the day if nothing else. We are blessed to have a coming and advancing Kingdom and the grip of eternal love on our hearts.

And we got to take this cool old-fashioned trolley as part of the journey.

We hope you all enjoyed your weekends, too.

valentine poem

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky
-e.e. cummings
















(we made an unplanned visit to e.e. cummings' grave on v-day.
he's buried in boston of all places!)

happy vday to our loving friends and fam. we love and miss you!

my new friend, Walgreens

I have an embarrassing, tiny affection for our nearest convenience store, Walgreens. Partly because it's just that - the nearest place to get anything (besides the corner store on our street at which I can buy overpriced rarities and things middle schoolers get for $1). And yet I, too, rejoice in finding Haribo gummy bears for 99 cents! I feel I have come closer to understanding Steph's affinity for Bartell's Drugs in Tacoma, something I never fully took advantage of. Now I even love Bartell's! In fact I know it's better than Walgreens, so hypothetically I love it more.

The latest confirmations of this affair involve mostly milk and cereal deals (which everyone knows are staples for the Eyes). I can get a gallon of milk at Walgreens for 90 cents cheaper than at the grocery store, and I only have to carry it a block! I was happy with my $1.99 2009 Massachusetts calendar. What a convenient steal! I'm also fond of the overall randomness of the store. I still don't really know what they specialize in carrying, and I discover weird new commodities there every time I explore. Today it was fascination with the Valentine's Day gift aisle. I must have spent 15 solid minutes analyzing the goofy pez dispensers, doggy valentines, mini m&m figurines, pirate hearts and BFF chocolate heart boxes. And our neighborhood store is a small one; they don't even recycle printer cartridges. You should see the store near Tim's work!

Nevertheless, I am held back by whole ring of 'quality' in the back of my mind, and so I doubt this warmth will escalate too much. Especially if the only gallons of milk available continue to be those that expire TOMORROW. Maybe there's a reason they're so cheap.

Boo on the flu, but yay for a new job!

Despite the bummer of coming down with the flu yesterday, hence canceling my exciting day today at Brown University for a conference on Human Rights including HIV/AIDS issues, I can't complain. I had an interview with Boston Nutrition and Fitness For Life yesterday, an organization that partners with other nutrition agencies in the area to bring nutrition education into lower-income communities with the aim of preventing childhood obesity.

They are looking for someone to hang out with middle school students after school this Spring through a club to find out what (healthy) foods they like and would buy at their local corner stores. Most of these kids go before AND after school to certain corner stores in Boston and buy what they can with the $1 in their pocket usually. I'll get to work with the schools and corner stores to figure out a 'hip' plan (with a team) that will actually appeal to the kids. The plan will roll out probably in the Fall, meaning the stores will start stocking new items that are alternatives to popular uber-sugar-sweetened beverages.

I can use this as my practicum, it's 99% sure payment, and I plan to accept on Monday! God is good. So, both of my current jobs will end in May/June, just in time for me to start a Full-time job that gives me tuition remission (hopefully). No idea what that will be, but He always provides something. Thanks everyone for your prayers!

Change Haiti Can Believe In

Last night while Abby was in class expanding her knowledge of Public Health, I headed off to UMass to further my own Health and Human Rights Education. Abby and I have both finished reading Pathologies of Power by Dr. Paul Farmer. The book highlights how turning health care into a purchasable commodity has eliminated the chance that the poor will have access to the best care, simply because they cannot afford it. Dr. Farmer argues for a preferential option for the poor - giving them the best care available - and suggests health care should be considered a basic human right.

Last night Paul Farmer was speaking alongside another Boston native, Matt Damon, on Haiti. Paul Farmer's organization Partners in Health does much work there. US Policy towards Haiti over the last 200 years has been negligent and at times outright destructive. We hold separate policies for Haitians and Cubans seeking refuge in the US. Haitians are arrested and sent back, while Cubans are allowed assylum. US government has blocked loans to Haiti which would create structure in education, health care and eliminate poverty and even gone as far as removing Haiti's democratically elected leader.

Afterwards, people mobbed Matt Damon with pictures and posters. (I admit it, my copy of Good Will Hunting was in my backpack with a Sharpie.) After I determined "The Bourne Identity" might be unreachable, I headed over to Dr. Farmer and asked him to autograph our copy of his book. He shouted at Matt, excited to have a few fans looking for his signature as well. Matt Damon laughed loudly and returned to the frenzied teens.


I told Dr. Farmer about my wife's passion for health and he told me he'd be watching for her to change the world. He and I both will.


If you'd like to learn more about Partners in Health or Haiti check out www.pih.org. If you like good books you could read Mountains beyond Mountains by Pulizter Prize winning author Tracy Kidder or the same book we read - Pathologies of Power by Dr. Farmer himself.

icicle tricicle

I think the icicles around here are deathly - worse than "A Christmas Story." They could not only poke your eye out, but they could poke your head out! Here's a pic of what has been hanging outside one of our windows in recent storms. We're the bottom-most window.

They all reform and resize, and we were in our apartment the first time one fell from the apartment above us, it shook the whole place! Sadly the one that formed the past couple days, which was even BIGGER, fell onto our 'porch' while no one was home. Now there are just gigantic ice chunks filling the wire window sill outside our window. Watch out, Maria! The entrance to the laundrymat is directly below these suckers!

let it snow...

A happy treat this weekend was snow! on Saturday we went on a short snowshoe adventure in nearby hills south of Boston with Alexis and Nico. We summitted Negot (or something) peak at 387 feet (WHEW!) and were rewarded with a view of Boston,

and then at the end, a hidden playland!! It even had a zipline. Massachusetts trails are great.

you don't see this every day.

Then we joined their friends Elfa and Gunar from Iceland for a yummy roast dinner and great conversation.

The fun continued with about a foot of snow that fell on Sunday! It makes the city so quiet and beautiful. We took a quick walk when it was really coming down.

This is our square. It was just snowing a little bit:)

twinkies turn 23

Happy birthday to my twin sister "twinkies" as our mom would say! 23 is the GOLDEN year, did you know that? Well, at least if you were born on the 23rd of a month as I was. But just because it was a golden year for me doesn't mean it can't be golden for you. So, may you have a very golden year. Did I mention that I have the best sisters in the world? Someday we will be able to ALL hangout for more than a week, that's my wish. OK I'm not supposed to wish things on other people's birthdays, but I hope you get what you wish for, and walk in the light of life. You will. Love and miss my sistas!

the earth is a satellite of the moon

I finally finished Paul Farmer's Pathologies of Power after a long time of reading it in chunks (not because it isn't good, but because I read books this way). The afterword begins with this powerful poem:

Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1
Apollo 1 cost plenty.

Apollo 3 cost more than Apollo 2
Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1
Apollo 1 cost plenty.

Apollo 4 cost more than Apollo 3
Apollo 3 cost more than Apollo 2
Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1
Apollo 1 cost plenty.

Apollo 8 cost a fortune, but no one minded
because the astronauts were Protestant
they read the Bible from the moon
astounding and delighting every Christian
and on their return Pope Paul VI gave them his blessing.

Apollo 9 cost more than all these put together
including Apollo 1 which cost plenty.

The great-grandparents of the people of Acahaulinca were less
hungry than the grandparents.
The great-grandparents died of hunger.
The grandparents of the people of Acahaulinca were less
hungry than the parents.
The grandparents died of hunger.
The parents of the people of Acahaulinca were less
hungry than the children of the people there.
The parents died of hunger.
The people of Acahaulinca are less hungry than the children
of the people there.
The children of the people of Acahaulinca, because of hunger,
are not born
they hunger to be born, only to die of hunger.
Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the moon.

- Leonel Rugama, Sandanista, 1949-70