A month ago, it felt like we skipped spring and went straight into summer.


Swimming and Scrabble on the beach, two weeks ago.

Now we are getting more of that spring weather and I feel like the world is in transition. This morning a tiny baby kitten walked out from behind the foliage. If you've read earlier notes of mine, you know more cats is not a good or reasonable thing for our neighborhood. I can only guess how many more are coming at the arrival of this one. I guess its kitten season: Lemmy and Shiva turned 1 this week. Life lately has been beautiful, tragic, wonderful and sad. Changes, growth and death saturate the world around me like the humid air.




The earth produces growth! I recently enjoyed our Americorps retreat and volunteering on this organic farm. Tory and I have been busy landscaping and taming our jungle of a yard and it is now manicured into the American dream (without the fence) with healthy sod and raised garden beds where tomatoes, herbs, cucumber, broccoli and an abundance of onions are loving the wet weather.



Tragedy yet small amounts of warmth in huddle with the loss of Joke's youngest sister.



Roomate bonding and dancing into the night.




The city is beautiful. I am happy in this place.

The other half of what made our trip so great was family. I was able to make it to my cousin's wedding and have a special window into the lives of my cousins and family through that night.
Later that weekend, my family threw us a party and showered us with wedding gifts. Tory was thoroughly welcomed to the family and we were very spoiled.


Tory sporting his tie and me with the biggest bling I've got. It "sparkles" LED style.


Jess got a chance to fulfill her maiderly duties! Good job Jess.

When we were house shopping, Tory and I came across a sign advertising a "sexy house" and I laughed, but when we looked at the pictures, I decided that it really was a sexy house. Our house... not sexy. More lodgy. Perfect for us. I would extend to say though, that as a city, Vancouver is sexy. In a really good, natural way. Friendly beaches, hip people, really nice people too. Tons of natural resources, city recycling and even composting programs, diversity, and art.
I feel honored to have been able to see the city's great sides through couchsurfing, biking, and walking around, but also to see Vancouver's dark side. The hours after we arrived, we started walking through Gastown and in search of Chinatown and instead, stumbled upon East Hastings. The concentrated mental illness and other really sad sights was such a shock to us that I looked up the area after we got back. The reviews are mixed; locals mostly wrote supportive comments acknowledging the sadness of those few blocks and encouraging tourists to not avoid the whole eastside because of it, and many tourists reviews talked about accidentally coming into the area and speed-walking through with looks of terror. I did not at all feel in danger in the area, but Tory and I both felt the heaviness of it and saw both some really sad and some overtly evil things that still weigh on my mind. One tourist commented: "If your in Vancouver on a nice vacation do not go here! Avoid it at all costs. You do not need to see this." I would counter that if you are on a nice vacation, this is exactly what you need to see. It's not pretty or happy, but poverty and suffering is a global reality that in North America is not usually so concentrated. I'm not advocating any sort of disaster tourism, but a wish for people to see the humanity there and everywhere (especially your own place, city, etc). Practice understanding, really seeing, and humility, instead of FEAR. Fear cannot help others, see others, or understand needs or virtues. Fear and love can't coexist. I really loved my short time in Vancouver, and am trying/learning to truly love the city I live in.


One of the best ways to overcome fear of the unknown and make a conscious decision to know instead is to try couchsurfing. If you haven't yet, please check out it out. My profile will help you get a feel for the system http://www.couchsurfing.org/people/rdel/. It is the best way to see a city. Fantastic accommodations, local knowledge, great company, special places to hang out, views of the city and even more that money couldn't buy if it tried. The point of it is to offer your couch when you're home and stay on other people's couches when you're not, in a market-free, pay-it-forward kind of exchange. Our hosts in Vancouver lived 2 houses down from the beach and we watched the sun go down from these spots on the front porch while chatting and drinking wine. The next day, they took us to the best vegetarian poutine place in Vancouver since Tory had never tried it, and then we borrowed bikes from them and worked off the gravy and cheese curds with a bike ride around the entirety of Stanley Park.

A PACKAGE ARRIVED!
Its my mothers wedding dress from 1986.



And cleverly labeled "soon Roff :)"
(addresses smudged with photoshop because I don't trust the blog spammer)

A great fit! But not exceptionally flattering.
I can't remember the last time I looked like such a giant. And I've gotten multiple Beetlejuice references to prove it.

Consider this the "BEFORE" picture! Thanks mom!



SOON: Tory and I are heading to my cousin's wedding in British Columbia this week. I am excited to go, and to bring my future husband as my date! We'll be couchsurfing in Vancouver to see some local flavor and then meet up with my parents and see the rest of my dad's family shortly! It's been too long.

NEXT: We started our marriage counseling; we each filled out questionnaires about our personal lives, family, and expectations. This was fun it made me reminiscent of being in grade 9 and sending surveys about myself to all my friends via a few cleverly named hotmail addresses, but also exciting and meaningful because the questions weren't "would you ever kiss me?" but questions geared to help us understand areas in our growing relationship that might need more focus or discussion.

THEN: We spent all Saturday doing a great amount of yard work like cutting down huge weed trees and turning over the lawn, and then Sunday locked the keys in the car and had an adventure buying a "slim jim" which is available for anyone to buy apparently at the local auto place (Right in the self-help section. Handy!) and then met a few characters in the neighborhood who figured they had some expertise in the area of opening locked car doors, but in the end, Tory got it open.

SO! Wedding date! We are getting married September 11, 2010!
We do realize that this coincides with an anniversary of the infamous named-after-the-date 9/11 tragedy. I have been trying to ease the few raised eyebrows we've gotten, without disrespecting those who feel that yearly anniversary very deeply. I don't believe dates are cursed, or that we should avoid every day throughout history on which a tragedy occurred. All you can do is create new memories, or as Joke said, "they are reclaiming 9/11." We are very excited and feel thoroughly supported in our relationship by family and friends. Thanks everybody!

We decided to get married sooner rather than later so I wanted to blog to make sure we do remember to enjoy the planning process. I am so far! I do feel pressure to pick a reception venue soon, but our date is more available than most and we're trying to find a non-traditional venue anyway. Vines? Karate? Russian Art? I'm having a good time looking.

North Minneapolis is a really neat place to be. Even the news is loosening the stereotypes;
Two articles in two weeks!

Bringing back the mundane

Fighting the stigma

I am in Minneapolis. I am engaged to my wonderful fiance, Tory. We are very excited about this recent step in our lives and plan to be married by late summer. Instead of a wedding blog, I decided to pick up my old blog again and update it about whatever seems to be relevant to continuing our life together. Tory is living in our new home in North Minneapolis and I'm there often so we have been encountering all kinds of new adventures that come with home-owning and living in a diverse neighborhood that has traditionally been marginalized.
Wherever I go, or rather, wherever I am directly determines what people and experiences I will encounter. These in turn shape my understanding of the world, it's people, and it's needs.
If you put yourself in certain locations, life can be monotonous and uninteresting unless you make it otherwise. So far it seems as though if you put yourself in North Minneapolis, monotony isn't even an option.
Firstly, what I didn't realize was a problem in America: spring feral cat population explosion. Our neighbor feeds them all from a huge bucket and it's attracting and feeding and sustaining anywhere from 12-30 now teenage cats who I'm terrified are about to unleash a few litters each. Our plan is to catch them, take them to Animal Ark to get neutered and release them again to live happy, non-reproductive lives. We caught one, who is now living in our garage and set the live trap again before we left to get coffee in what is now being referred to as the North Loop. Since it was warm out, I suggested biking and we took our first bike ride two convenient miles down Broadway into downtown.
We discovered that Java J's has $1 pbr's on Friday nights and began wedding planning. VERY EXCITING. We stayed past 1am and got on our bikes only to discover that my slowness was (partially) due to a flat back tire. We stopped at the Beehive gas station for a spot of air, which cost a dollar and was probably not usually used for bikes so Tory, in his banana-yellow hoodie went to the line in front of the bulletproof window to ask for change. 3/4 customers ordered a pack of 'swisher sweets,' (the relevance of which had to be explained to me) and since no one would talk to him, much less agree to get him change for a dollar, he waited in line and returned to me laughing. When we continued on, Tory the speedy biker breezed through red lights when the roads were clear and to his impatience, I hesitantly waited them out. On one such light, as Tory biked on, I waited for a car in the distance to pass by and heard a deep voice over my shoulder say, "THAT WAS A GOOD DECISION YOUNG LADY." Then as the light turned green, I watched a cop car pull Tory over on his bicycle. Then an officer got out and made Tory put his hands on the hood and frisked him, for what, I don't know. Another cop got out of the car too and to my initial confusion, they let an older random guy help himself out of the back of the car. I now know what an undercover cop looks like. He is virtually indistinguishable from a layperson.

When I pulled up, this is the conversation I heard:

-Do you know where you are?
-Yeah, I'm on Broadway!
-Does that mean anything to you?
-It means I'm on my way home!
-You live around here?
-Yeah, I live a few blocks past here.
-Is there a reason you ran that light?
-Just trying to keep moving I guess...
-Okay, I believe you.
(To me)-You should teach him a few biking lessons!

Then they let us bike away and we laughed together.

When we got back to the house, we looked in the trap and laughed even harder. A fat possum gave us a look that said, "It's not my fault I'm the kind of animal that is not meant to be seen in the light of day!"

Meanwhile, the cats run free and the neighbor raises pitbulls in his basement.

Group to group; new people, new focus, new networks, new job!
It has been a while since I wasn't part of some collective and going through group dynamics. I like individuals (whether they are part of groups or not) better than groups. I am united to my new Americorps co-workers by technology-related job experience and probably many other things to be discovered. I'm really enjoying my co-workers at my specific location as well so that's exciting.

The transition to Minnesota felt pretty normal since I left Grand Rapids behind before Thailand and all those adventures on the other side of the world. It somehow makes sense that life would not continue as it was after a semester like that. I'm still the midwest, and now seeing lots of Tory, so life doesn't feel that different from Grand Rapids, just disconnected. I'm really missing out on Art Prize, I know. It was so good for me to feel connected to the place I lived for those years that it's hard to miss out on what might be the initial peak of that small, neat place into a place deserving flourishing artistic or at least creative recognition.

I went to a farmers market here... and that's when I realized the size difference between GR and minneapolis. It was comparative to markets in Thailand! Huge, colorful, crowded (the sellers were more diverse than in Thailand), selling everything from local berries (yay!) to imported anything (yikes!). I asked details about local fish farming but the guy only gave me planned answers, so I won't be buying yet if ever. Tory and I picked up some awesome mint for Moroccan tea and blueberries for pancakes and biked our goodies home for breakfast.