Wednesday, March 17, 2010

"But in another way community is a terrible place. It is the place where our limitations and egoism are revealed to us. When we begin to live full time with others, we discover our poverty and our weakness, our inability to get on with people, our mental and emotional blocks.....our seemingly insatiable desires,our frustrations and jealousies, our hatred and our wish to destroy."
Jean Vanier

Monday, March 15, 2010

PS: Ides of March

Today (the same day Caesar was betrayed) is my parents' 30th wedding anniversary. Yay!


Mama and Papa Kopena

We love to boogie

So today I was out running and it got really hot. In no way did I feel like continuing to run. Though at this point describing my movement as a "run" may be a bit to grandiose, it was really hot. It was really turning into more of a slow fade down to jog, where your mouth and lips get awkwardly dry. At that point I felt probably more like an antelope that was getting visibly tired that the lion would probably see and say "Oh Baby, Dinner!" ANYWAY I digress, so as soon as I stopped and I was getting ready to walk the rest of the way home, this song came on my ipod and I was so excited I couldn't even contain myself! I had to start running. But it definitely wasn't an I'm cool and motivated run, I look like a Navy Seal or Olympian sort of run. It was definitely a if-there-were-daisies-I-would-pick-you-and-keep-running-awkwardly-goofy sort of run. I definitely feel like there were probably some ballet leaps mixed in there, and silly head bobbing (Which is so not a Kingston-ian thing to do, definitely much more of a silly from Philly). Anyway, I thought I would share my moment of innocent reckless abandon and goofiness. Though, in hindsight I've been thinking about the lyrics and they're actually pretty nasty!


The last bit of my run definitely had some of this action in it, but not so high

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Christmas in Philly! (2009-beginning of 2010)



Barbara, me, and Mama by the Christmas tree. We accidentally wore coordinated outfits.




Me and Spike Lee's daughter



Mama on Christmas morning, it was just the two of us in the morning. My dad had work, and others came later. It was nice to spend it with my mom though, exchanging little presents and eating my favorite cereal combination: Kashi Heart to Heart with cold vanilla soy milk, fresh blackberries and dried blueberries. Too much of this entry is about food, but hey! I only get most of my favorite foods when I come to Philly to visit.



Christmas bagels! (Hummus, red and green bell peppers, diced tomatoes, those delicious chips, mmmm). Not a family tradition, I don't even think this was even on Christmas, I think it was the day after, when we were having a movie marathon. The key here is delicious! another favorite food consumed on my visit :)



My brother's army of minions....or construction workers? Or Village people?



My masterpieces!!!!!!!!!!!! I ate the mermaid cookie last.



Mmmm icing! Caitlin and I creating.



Joe and Caitlin, hard at work!



This is my Christmas stocking. One Christmas Eve a really long time ago my brother and my mom stayed up late decorating these plain stockings and putting our names on them. If you look really carefully you will see that mine has a tiny white rocking horse ornament on it. I don't even need to look at the picture to see it, for some reason that little horse is just burned into my retina.....in a good not painful way.

Presents in lovely paper. Part of me really wasn't expecting gifts since my trip to Philly was more than present enough. But more of me knew that my mom would be up before me rustling around and creating some surprise for me :) I was still pleasantly surprised and very happy though. I'll admit it, I really like opening packages.



This is the advent calendar from my childhood. I looked forward to it going up the entire year, not even necessarily because it was countdown to Christmas, but partly because that's the only time of year the little adorable mouse-y came out. I am totally kidding myself by saying this is all past tense, I still get really excited to see the mouse go up and to count down the days.



Christmas Eve vigil at BW (My congregation of Circle of Hope).



Snow Angel...I got snow in my boots right before a walk, but totally worth it.



Me and Kofi Kohl! One of my favorite people.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Peacocks

I'm supposed to go to sleep, but I really just wanted to make a brief comment about peacocks. Did you know that peacocks make one of THE most obnoxious sounds known to humankind? I am very well versed in obnoxious-ness, tending to usually enjoy annoying/unsettling/bizarre sounds. HOWEVER, peacocks are lame. You may think, as I once did, that peacocks are really cool because of their beautiful colors, and how they dance like Las Vegas showgirls with their pretty feathers (even though that analogy doesn't really work because the ones that do the dances are the males, though everything in Las Vegas is highly questionable) but they are heinous. This past weekend at a retreat a peacock would just not leave me alone when I was in the shower and was all about stalking that bathroom with his large scary noises that echoed in the bathroom. I requested he reserve those sounds for members of his same species.



Other interesting tidbit, at Happy Hills, said male peacock really likes to jump into the trees and hide just out of reach so that he cannot be carried back to his actual home.