I'm returning to Providence this afternoon, w...

August 31, 2007 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg

I'm returning to Providence this afternoon, with a detour to the Mall of America, the only place, apart from the airport, that the hotel runs a shuttle to. It would have been nice to see some of Minneapolis, but we were in workshops all day, and I facilitated Campus Compact VISTA leader workshops in the evening. The Campus Compact VISTA leaders were brilliant and accomodating.

It will be nice to get back into my own dusty house and wrinkled potatoes. After five days, the shiny surfaces and buffet-style meals can be too much of a good thing.

The first morning living in the Bloomington P...

August 28, 2007 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg

The first morning living in the Bloomington Park Plaza hotel is quite nice. My window overlooks flat expanses of asphalt and the rolling hills of the mall of america. All of the VISTA leaders are great, though, and while I'm a little tired of the enthusiastic facilitators- "this week will transform the rest of your life!"- it's nice to have someone restock my shampoo every day.

In preparation for VISTA leader training, I'v...

August 24, 2007 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg

In preparation for VISTA leader training, I've created a series of pencil and paper games for VISTA leaders to do while we learn about how to be transformational leaders. One of my favorites is a game called "categories," in which you have to write down something in a specific category that begins with a certain letter. My categories are books your VISTAs could read, movies that are good, civic engagement vocab, and something you'd rather be doing. My example row, using the letter "R," includes Rules for Radicals, Ratatouille, and Reading a magazine.

Despite Janet's unenthusiastic review of Rocket Science, a film that she jadedly categorizes as "quirky suburban teen comedy," I'm hoping to see it this weekend. It's about a boy with a stutter who joins a debate team for a girl. How could that not be delightful?

Mom left for Gibraltar from Providence this ...

August 21, 2007 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg

Mom left for Gibraltar from Providence this morning. We ate at many wonderful restaurants along the way, watched the Borne Ultimatum in the Providence Place mall, and got to sit on a beach in Jamestown. I have a new watch and lots of toilet paper.

Next week I'll be going to Minneapolis for VISTA leader training, which should be incredibly fun. Not the training, of course, but spending time with other Campus Compact VISTA leaders. We have a fledgling listserv and have frantically shared documents back and forth. I want to put them all online and then build a Campus Compact VISTA recruitment machine that rivals the Teach for America website. We, alas, do not have a recruitment budget, but that's neither here nor there. We have the web and each other.

Alina, Sara Spettel-Aliyar's wife, had Pracil...

August 20, 2007 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg

Alina, Sara Spettel-Aliyar's wife, had Pracilla, a perfectly healthy and beautiful baby to keep their two dogs company. Congratulations!

Mom is in town, and as we are want to do, we ...

August 16, 2007 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg

Mom is in town, and as we are want to do, we have eaten for most of her visit. Our first night, we ate roasted wild boar with figs and polenta, exquisitely grilled vegitables, and a perfectly baked fig tart with vanilla ice cream. Last night, because I was still full from Al Forno's, we went to Loui Fuller's down the street and split a seafood salad with grilled grapefruit, a vegitable tart, and a pear tart with ginger ice cream. I didn't take pictures of any of our amazing meals, but I should have. Tonight we're eating in with the harvets of my neighborhood farmer's market.

And, despite mom's shock that I can live on $12,000 a year, it's what many people must do, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have plenty of socks.

A quiet Providence weekend draws to a close

August 13, 2007 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg

A quiet Providence weekend draws to a close. Everyone in Rhode Island seems to be celebrating Victory Day, which I think is silly, so I'm at work. I've started to selectively re-read some of the old Harry Potter books that I haven't picked up in years, and it's fun to find how all of the peices, names, and little details wrap themselves together in the end. I never liked the second book enough to re-read it, but that's when Harry hides in the wardrobe in that Dark Arts shop and Peeves breaks the matching wardrobe. It's neato.

With mom coming to Providence as an ambassado...

August 09, 2007 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg

With mom coming to Providence as an ambassador for the whole family, I've decided to give her a grand tour of Rhode Island (which is not very difficult in a state so petite). I will still have to go to work, so I've organized weekdays into neighborhood quadrents, so I can direct her to an area of town and let her get lost until I find her again at 4pm. It is, of course, an opportunity for me to go the restaurants I keep hearing about (Cuban Revolution and Kitchen) and the ones I want to visit again (Loui Fuller's and Taqueria Pacifica). Cultural tours will have to include the RISD and Brown art museums, the Cliff Walk in Newport, and a day on Block Island. My roommate is curious to see how much mom will actually assent to doing in the short week that she is here, and I'm curious to see on what day mom starts likening the visit to her death march with Rick Steves.