A VLOG, what what?

I haven't tried Blogger video yet, so if it's struggling to load for you, you can also see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCwqUvvqShA 

At least we've only been in exile 40 days, not 40 years

I know it has been awhile. Believe me when I say, with absolute certainty, there is a very good reason for it.

Basically--Monty Python started directing my life, so things don't make too much sense anymore.

FOR EXAMPLE: Do you know what I have been thinking about a lot lately? FIRE MARSHALLS.

The subject of a Fire Marshall is so random it could be a Family Guy joke. Usually, in the past, when I have thought of Fire Marshalls, I've thought of them as people who were loveably zealous about safety. At their most noble, they truly care about Saving Lives and Protect People from Dangerous Situations.

Of course, I wasn't completely idealistic. I figured there were a few lazy people who just signed papers and stayed in the buracracy. Or, you know, Fire Marshall Bill.

LET ME SHOW YA SOMETHIN!

But alas, those days of careless bliss could not last forever.

A little over a month ago, I suddenly got a call from Jennie, our community liason.

Jennie: Hey, Amanda. Listen, the Fire Marshall just came in and said that we can't stay in the church. We have to be out by tonight.

Me: Um...buhWHU?

The rest of the day was spent in a hazy blur of panic, trying to find somewhere to live, and blinding rage.

APPARENTLY, the plan that was sent off to the state and gotten approved by the State Fire Marshall and worked on was NOT OK with the Local Fire Marshall. No, now for people to live in the church, we have to have Fire Doors and Special Handrails and Sprinklers Everywhere and asdlaf;wlgihawet#$YW$E%U#@%&@45y

(BTW, the building is like solid concrete. In case anyone was wondering.)

SO! Eight people who work at a church and a HOME FOR WOMEN have now been displaced from their homes. Oh irony. Please. You slay me with your great ironicness.

I'm tired as hell and cranky and frustrated and have been living in a suspended sort-of reality for like a month. And my mental image of a fire marshal has gone from this:

I will save kittens!

To this:

I think it's time to say goodbye to Prince A-Boo-Boo...

So THAT, good people, is why I have been non communicative. Or, if we have been communicating, why I've been a jerk to you--I've been sleeping on a mattress set up on a floor in a giant room with seven other people. It does not. make. me. happy.

Lots of wonderful things have happened as well! But for now, this definitely makes the best blog post.

Also, I deeply hope "Prince Ali" is now stuck in your head. You're welcome.

BAAAAABBBBBYYYYY!!!!!!11!!!!!1!!!!1!!!

MEET THE NEWEST RESIDENT OF HAGAR'S HOUSE!!!!!!

He and his mommy are doing just fine! Hopefully they'll be coming home in the next few days. After a very scary pregnancy, birth went pretty well! He's a month premature and probably the tiniest baby I've ever seen. (Don't be nervous about that, my exposure to babies has been...um...zero.)

So now we get to find out what it's like to live in a house with a newborn--but I think sheer adorableness makes up for any crying in the future:

Math

Homesickness
+ Month-Long Cough that makes singing impossible
+ Non-working trumpet
+ Gulf Coast Oil Spill
+ disgusting hot sticky weather
+ dead car battery
= One Sad Freaking Amanda

So what happens next?

Monday morning (Marathon Meeting Mondays, remember?) I was sitting in devotion when the reality of my life struck me.

Oh my God. I live in New Orleans. I'm sitting in a group of incredible people I completely love. I live in a church and work at the most fantastically dynamic home I've ever been in. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

I've gotten a lot of questions about what I want to do after I finish this. I can answer this with total honesty: I don't know.

Life in community is so beautiful, I don't know if I can leave it. There is an undercurrent of "truth" that once you get a little older, it's time to settle down, get an apartment/house, get a real job, and move on.


But that isn't the only way we can live. Sure, it's the dominant narrative in our country right now, but that doesn't make it right. It's not really natural to live so isolated--in an apartment or house with only kids and a partner. There are options.

And you know what? It's not really hard. Some things about it suck (the shower is the first thing that leaps to mind,) but the benefits far outweigh the annoyance. So as far as I can tell right now--I want to live in some sort of true community, if it's possible.

The other parts: where do I want to go, where do I want to live? Well...I'm torn.

I love New Orleans. I want to throw myself into life here completely, put down my anchor, and be a part of this unique and rebuilding city. I love the music, I love the feel, I love the people. I love the community. And I love First Grace--it's an incredible church community that is really based on love. I adore the residents at Hagar's House and have gotten back to where I look forward to coming to work.

But.

There is a mountain-shaped hole in my heart, a hole that longs for forests and waterfalls and mossy rocks. There is an ache where my family lives that I can't replace here. There is a surety and certainty in the love of Konnoak, my home church, that I miss. There are so many people I miss every day--friends and church family I just don't see anymore.

New Orleans is carving its place in my heart right next to the Blue Ridge Parkway--PoBoys beside Boone Drug, First Grace beside Konnoak, brass band beside orchestra. And I feel this holding back that I feel like is interrupting life here, this knowledge that I could be gone come October 2011.

So many people are transient residents here--tons of young, progressive white kids come down with AmeriCorps or Catholic Worker or US-2, do their job, and leave. And yes, that's great and wonderful.

But I don't want to be another fleeting face here. And I honestly don't know if I can leave.

Probably the longest "I don't know" you've read in awhile. Sorry for the rambling...I'm still trying to sort it out.

If any US-2s or Mission Interns (or anyone else, really,) has any similar thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

I don't think you're ready for this jelly

I picked a really good week to give you an honest play by play. ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE READY???

Wednesday, 8am: Headed over to Hagar's for my morning shift. A pretty quiet morning--most residents were gone, so there wasn't much happening in the house. Still some outside/garden time with the kids who were here--we are loving this beautiful weather!

1pm: Got off my shift, so I headed home. I did all kinds of things I was supposed to (like LAUNDRY! Woo!)

5:00pm: Headed back to Hagar's for a capacity building meeting. Capacity building meetings are a one on one meeting with a resident partner to help hook her up with resources and check on how things are going for her in the house. We had a wonderful meeting, and I left feeling great.

6:15pm: Got in my Miraculously Revived Honda (and by "Miraculously Revived" I mean "Paid-Way-Too-Much-To-Fix") and drove to the Westbank for rehearsal for my Easter gig. Sightread almost perfectly and felt like a real trumpet player. :)

9:30pm: Tried and failed to get Chick-fil-et. It's been months. There's no Chick-fil-et on the east bank. I am going into Pickle Bread Withdrawls. Settled for Taco Bell. Came back, chatted with people for awhile.

12:00amish: Bed, but didn't fall asleep for another hour.

3:00am: In a shallow part of my brain, I hear this EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE shrieking sound. I think, the alarm has gone off at Hagar's House! I didn't realize I could hear it at the church! I'm glad I'm not on call.

Since my room is right next to the common room, I can hear when people come in or out. Hearing voices in the room finally stirred me to awakeness, only to realize, wait...this is OUR alarm.

I opened the door to the common room to an ear-spliting alarm. Eric and Jennie were already in there. The whole room was full of horrible-smelling smoke. My first words were--actually, let's not share my first words. They were not missionary words, let's say that.

Me: What's going on?

Jennie: Someone left something on the stove. Angela just ran out for a Hagar's House emergency.

Eric: Someone has to go down and talk to the fire department.

Me: Um...what? (As you can see, just-woke-up Amanda is not winning any comprehension awards.)

So we went through the church opening windows and running fans, trying to get the smoke out. Eric went down and told the fire department everything was under control. Smoke got EVERYWHERE--in the hallways, in my room, everywhere. Jacinto made the alarm stop shrieking at us.

Of course, after all this running around, we're all wide awake.

3:45am: Angela back from Hagar's--a resident headed for the hospital in an ambulance, but was getting taken care of. We decide to at least attempt some sleep--Angela and I were on shift at 8 AM Thursday morning.

My room was still full of smoke, but at least it didn't stink as bad. I burned some incense to get rid of the smell. (For the record, if you can't find your incense holder, shoving the stick in a slightly-squishy-apple does the trick.)

Still, the smoke made my eyes burn and I couldn't sleep. I left my window opened and grabbed my blankets and an extra matress and crashed on Jennie's floor. Of course, IN HINDSIGHT, it was useless. (Did you see what I did there? Did you like that foreshadowing???)

4:30am: I was drifting right on the edge of Asleep and Awake where Tinkerbell said Peter Pan would always find her when Mo'Isa, who had also taken refuge in Jennie's room, started barking. I jerked awake and shouted some more non-missionary words.

Mo'Isa was barking at Angela, who was out in the hallway. She'd just recieved a call from Carolyn (who was overnight at Hagar's,) saying that the resident who went to the hospital was discharged and didn't have a bed and needed a ride home. Angela wasn't comfortable wtih driving so late at night when she was so sleepy, so I volunteered to go. And since I was wide awake, I figured it would be easier for me to just stay up and go to my Hagar's shift, Angela could sleep until like ten, and then I could go crash. PLAN.

5:15am: Drove to Metairie to pick up the resident. She was fine, yay! She seemed tired but OK and much less scared. We got her back home, and I proceeded to go to McDonalds.

6:00am: Sat out in the courtyard with my breakfast, journaling, thinking, you know, dawn is a great time to be ENDING the day. This is way easier than waking up at 7.

7:00am:  Went into Hagar's house early so Carolyn could go get some sleep (she'd had a crazy night too! And I'm the freakish night owl so it worked out.)

8:00am: Wondered if it was at all possible for me to make it until 10. Went down to play with the kids, which woke me up. They were screaming and carrying on, but in a fun way, not in a "I'm-getting-my-tubes-tied-tomorrow-to-avoid-this" way.

10:00am: Angela came to the house. I went home and slept the sleep of the dead.

4:00pm: Woke up to go to music rehearsal for Good Friday. Was extraordinarly cranky. Went and got Mexican food. Felt better.

6:00pm: Back at Hagar's! A really nice evening--the kids dyed Easter eggs, then we had knitting in the living room after that.

So I'm here now for the overnight--everyone is asleep (or at least in their rooms with the lights off.) The Green Futon of Sleep is calling to me, so I'm going to answer. I just wanted to post this before my stories go ridiculously longer. Good night, all!

I KNOW, I KNOW

 Yes, I have failed spectacularly on keeping up my blog. I'M SORRY I LOVE YOU ALL AND I'LL DO BETTER I ALMOST PROMISE.

So! Things are still going marvolously in New Orleans. Our bitterly cold winter is over! (Don't roll your eyes at me, Boone People: New Orleans is not built for cold, so very few places have insulation or functioning heat.) The warm sunny weather has been calling us outside more and more.

My times at Hagar's House now include planting in the community garden with kids and playing outside. I watched a kid learn to ride a bike in (this is no exaggeration,) FIFTEEN MINUTES. It was awesome.

I've still gotten a few people asking me, "So...what exactly IS your job?" I thought the best way to explain that would be to go over a week of what my schedule looks like.

Yesterday, Monday: 9:30: Meetings! These meetings take place with all the staff. We talk about things going on on the house that have to do with policy--should we change curfew? What's our policy on nights out? Things like that. These meetings happen every week and last until about noon.

1pm: A fellow staff member was sick (ah, the joys of spending 50+ hours a week in a house with seven children!) so I covered his shift from 1 to 6. Through a lot of the day, there was almost no one home, so I:

*Battled computer viruses/spyware on the resident comupter (and won! Roar!)

*Struggled to get a laptop hooked up to the wireless internet (and failed. Alas.)

*Ran to the grocery store to get some food (and the super-important Easter egg dye :)

5pm: People started coming home. This is the best part of the day, because I got to sit in the kitchen and chat with them for awhile. (That's my favorite part of work/life in the house.)

At about 6:20 (because I lost track of time and didn't realize the other staff members had gotten there,) I headed back to the church for a quick dinner.

(I'm becoming a gourmet chef, too. I made GRILLED CHEESE. This morning I fixed myself Toad in a Hole. WATCH OUT, EMERIL.)

Every Monday, there is a meeting with all residents in the house. This is a resident facilitated meeting where they can bring up problems in the house, sign up for programing, offer suggestions, and generally work out the details of living on community. Unfortunately, having kids running around in the living room doesn't help that process. So...

7:00: Carolyn gathered up the kids to go play with them elsewhere, and I volunteered to help. We also had another volunteer there (yay, Frank!)

Seriously, six to three SEEMS like pretty good odds. That's one adult to every two kids! How hard could it be?

Anyone who's ever tried to corall kids age 2-8 with no structured activity knows the answer to this question. It worked out pretty well, but if Frank hadn't been there, life would have been more than a little difficult.

Also, here's a question. You're in a playground area with kids. There are A) swings and B) those little animal things on springs. (What in the world ARE those things?) What's the most popular toy? If you guessed C) the picnic table they're not supposed to climb on, congratulations, you know children!

But the kids seemed to have fun and the adults could have their meeting, so mission accomplished! I headed home.

8:30: Amanda collapses on the sofa and tells Jennie how she's really going to get up and do laundry in a couple minutes, really, she is, just watch her, it's going to happen.

10:00: Amanda goes to her room and plays video games, promising herself that really, tomorrow she'll do laundry, really.

Tuesday: My day off! I woke up at 11, fixed breakfast and came to a coffee shop. I've been here since. So...that's been my day!

I'll try to post every couple days this week so you can get an idea of life in the house, (but you know how I am about promising to post, and I know you still love me, don't you my wonderful people? Please?)