It’s finally starting to feel like fall in DC, and after nine months in Thailand it is admittedly strange to be wearing scarves and sweaters again. It’s also hard to believe that I haven’t written anything in a month, but that’s probably just because it’s been a super crazy time for us.
I was lucky enough to find a job with Save the Children, working at their after school program in NE DC, after only a couple true weeks of unemployment. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride getting the hang of my job; the school is in a pretty poor/rough neighborhood, and my students are not only universally behind grade level in reading, they’re also dealing with things like parental abandonment, homelessness, etc. It’s frustrating, heartbreaking, rewarding, and exhausting. The major downside is the commute, which takes me an hour to get clear across the city via walking, biking, metro and bus.
We’ve also been gearing up to actually start the furniture business we have thrown around as an idea over the past year, but never really got going with. Our major project at the moment is a dresser from the 1940’s that we got for free on Craigslist, and has turned out to need a lot of love. When we got it, it had been painted black (badly), and was chipped and scratched all over. We also collected another dresser and a huge coffee table from the same woman, so our living room is currently filled to the brim with extra sets of furnishings. Hopefully we’ll be able to finish and sell the dressers and some other odds and ends soon so we can have some semblance of a living space back.
Other than that, things I’ve been doing include: going to the zoo (when it’s not closed due to the shutdown), enjoying cooking again, riding my shiny new bike all over the city, and getting back in touch with friends. Oh yeah, and I got to meet Margaret Atwood at the National Festival of Books, which was AMAZING. Favorite quote of the day, concerning being stuck on an island with one other person: “I would take Lord Baden Powell, because he would pitch the tent and make the fire and catch the fish, and he would never want to have sex, and I’d have time to read.” One day, I want to be as creative and sassy as she is.
The Uprooted Path 