Mike,

I’m still keeping my eyes peeled for new Boulder bumper stickers, and when I see one, I note it down on the b.s. notepad I keep in my car.  I see many of the old ones already listed, but new ones keep on appearing.  Maybe I’ve seen about half of all that are out there.  Some are funny enough that I forget where I’m driving, like “I study ferns, and I vote!”

–rakkity

Adam’s Maine photos.

Another 48 photos from Diane’s party, most of which were taken by Chris Grosjean, also known as Goose. In case you were wondering, I contracted Joe who enlisted Cortney’s help to create the colorful drawing which covers a hole in the kitchen ceiling caused by a leaky shower. No, not a recent leak, but one which got decidedly worse the day of the party.

Here’s a bunch of photos from last weekend’s trip to York, Maine. We rented the yellow house on the cliff and filled all six available bedrooms, but still had room for three more people – or so it was advertised. Meals were cozy affairs.

The weather didn’t deter us from daily walks to  Nubble Point and onto the rocks below the house. However, the stormy surf pounded so incessantly that ocean loving Diane dreamed of sleeping in the middle of a corn field.

Hi Mike,

Boulder’s early spring flowers seem to be confused by the combination of low temperatures and intense sun this month.  The Corsican violets have come and gone, but now the crocuses have formed riots of purple in the town’s gardens. Meanwhile, up in the mountains, the snow keeps falling on avalanche terrain, making us XC skiers eye the slopes warily.  And underneath those deep drifts, the creeks are already gushing towards the Colorado, the South Platte, and the Arkansas rivers to feed the thirsty plains.

rakkity, your roving rapporteur

Here’s another seventy-four images from Diane’s party and these came from my camera which was passed around so who knows who took which. They’ve been vetted by Joseph (who laughed quite a bit), Diane, Peter, Matthew and Chris. The slideshow is set for five seconds a photo and the background music is Jewel’s legacy version of “You Make Loving Fun.” The song is long but it doesn’t keep up with slideshow – so be it. You can disable the slideshow, the music, whatever – just play around with the controls.

Believe it or not, I have another eighty-eight to fret about. Those come from Goose’s camera, most of which were taken by him, all in a format called raw which requires editing so who knows when you’ll see those, but they are worth waiting for. Goose caught people’s reactions to Diane’s speech.

Thanks to everyone who came and to Diane’s Dream Team – Karen O’Neil, Karen Schiff, and Ginger Candee – who made it possible. I went to bed late only to find Diane still awake reminiscing about her wonderful party.

I almost forgot what day this is.

Jennifer gave Diane this unique plant with black leaves and delicate purple flowers. I don’t remember the name of it, but she did say it’d be hard to kill, that it would outlast all the other birthday flowers and we could breed it as she has. I love it.

Mike,

Shot this picture while driving today through Boulder.  I thought I had ferreted out all possible sources of latte in this caffeinated town, but here’s another source of the bean.   At first I visualized ordering espresso drinks from the comfort of your barcalounger by phone or email, but (unfortunately) they just cater espresso to businesses.

–rakkity

I continue to work on photos from Diane’s party, but I’m still overwhelmed by the number of extraordinary images. Here are two more – I’m down to about hundred -  and maybe I’ll get a first installment  album up tomorrow.

Well hello there!

I’ve been looking at the blog — fabulous! I can’t wait for all the pictures to come up. Goose did a really amazing job with those the video. I love it.

Also, I was hoping you could help me get a job job for this summer. I realized that you know everyone in the world, and they’re all really interesting. (See, I’m “networking.” Special, huh?!) Anyways, I’m trying to find a job (paid) or internship (probably unpaid) doing something that I actually care about. Probably environmental justice work (not walking around with a clipboard and begging people for money, but actually DOING and ORGANIZING stuff) or women’s health work. Preferably not having it centered around kids under the age of, like, 15.

Anyways, I have this letter thing I wrote to a bunch of Quaker friends of ours that I could send to you if you think it would be helpful. It would probably be good for people who don’t really know me — it tells a little about my classes and majors and what I’ve done in the past, etc. Okay, I’ll just copy and paste it below.

I’ll give you all a call later today, but my roommate’s fast asleep still. I woke up at 8:45 and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I figured I might as well take care of all this emailing stuff.

Jobless,

Hilary

************

Dear all,

Hi everyone! I’m writing to you because I am, naturally, trying to figure out what I’m doing with myself this summer. I would love to have a job or an internship that I find meaningful, important, and interesting, which is really difficult to find!

I’m a sophomore at Oberlin College (in case you had forgotten or never knew), and I recently declared my major as Latin American Studies. I’m not limiting myself, however, to work only within that field. I’ll probably declare an Environmental Studies major or minor by the end of the semester as well. In the environmental field, environmental justice (looking at who receives the benefits versus who receives the burdens of environmental “progress” and degradation) is particularly interesting to me. Additionally, women’s health and access to services is something that I’d love to become more involved in.

Some classes that I’ve particularly loved include Global Environmental History of the 20th Century, Social Psychology, Latina/os in Comparative Perspective, Latina/o Cultural Activism, and Human Rights and Human Wrongs. Over my winter break, which is 4 weeks longer than most, I interned at an organization in San Francisco called About-Face, which combats negative images of women in the media, teaches media literacy workshops in schools, and is starting a new 12-week long activism workshop that ten young women will be a part of this summer (yay!). During high school I went to Nicaragua twice, for a month each time, volunteering the first time in a school translating letters, and the second time teaching photography in a library for kids ages 8-16, which means that I speak Spanish decently well. I’ve been staffing at Friends General Conference since I was a junior in high school, although it isn’t my aim to be working with kids this particular summer. In addition to other volunteering and activism work, I’m also extremely committed Ultimate Frisbee. It’s fabulous.

I was writing to all of you in hopes that you might be able to make suggestions about organizations that you know do good work, people who might be helpful for me to get in touch with, etc. I’ve done a lot of volunteering and organizing, but I’m finding it difficult to get into the more “professional” world of non-profits and activism work than I had suspected. I’m hoping to be in the New England area this summer, preferably in a “city,” although even that’s debatable. Portland (Maine) and the Boston/Cambridge-area are of the most interest to me, since I might also be looking to take classes at a college or university. Chicago is also a definite possibility and very appealing. I’m hoping to not be living at home (even though I love my parents dearly), mostly because a change in scenery is long overdue. I suppose that means it would be good for me to be able to find someplace that would be able to pay me, but that’s negotiable since I might be able to get a grant from the college for living expenses.

Thanks so much for all your support over the years, even if we haven’t spoken recently. Feel free to forward my letter along to people you think I forgot or people you think might be interested in having me work with them this summer.

Much love, and take care,

Hilary