Mixed Moss

My friends all seem to be moving and/or traveling lately. They have scattered to the wind like so much straw. That sounds like a line from a song in Fiddler on the Roof or like something out of the book of Lamentations or Ecclesiastes, but it isn’t any of those things. I don’t think. Here are interesting things about my friends and the places they go:

Justin (aka Consuelo) moved to Frankfort, Kentucky where he is working as an urban planner. He tells people “No, you can’t build that swimming pool there!” and gives people permits to build decks and things. It is supposedly the most picturesque state capital in the nation. I don’t know what the capital of Hawaii is but how it beats out anywhere in Hawaii is beyond me. But, there you have it. There is so little to do in Frankfort and so much to do in Chicago and Cincinnati that one of these days I am going to go and visit him there…as opposed to him coming to Chicago…go figure.

Corey moved to Washington, D.C. and is working for XM Radio there. She loves her job and they love her. This is pretty cool to me. It’s exciting to see somebody who got a degree in something they wanted to do and then, when they graduated, actually got a job that enables them to do just that. Hmm. Something to shoot for. But I’m not sure it’ll happen in my case.

Rachel is somewhere in Jordan, ‘taking classes’. Enough said. I hope she doesn’t bring a dog home; last time she went to the middle east she was this close to bringing one back and I don’t know what she would do with it if she decides to move half-way around the world when she graduates– which she will. She’s kind of spontaneous like that.

Lydia just got back from a mission trip to Africa and finished up her classes and graduated. Now she’s going to go to grad school…somewhere in Texas…and get a grad degree before she goes back to Africa to be a Bible translator and missionary, because the more titles you have after your name the less likely they are to kick you out of the country.

Kyle went on a mission trip to Africa too. He left this past Spring; he may be back by now. I was talking to a girl at the time he left and she said “Oh, that’s nice, he’ll miss nearly all of the cicadas.” I looked at her like she was crazy and said, “They’ve got hyenas in Africa!!!” He was a little worried about those hyenas. I hope he did ok.

Liz and Dan moved to Princeton, New Jersey. Dan is so smart he has been accepted to grad school there. As best as I can understand it he is going to study the history of agriculture. As 4-H BBR as I am, that is cool to me. Liz has a job lined up for next year as a music teacher. It is a lovely old town, with lots of bike trails and a canal where you can canoe and kayak and a little downtown with shops. People there keep their bikes outside their apartments on the front stoop with no locks, and nobody steals them! Truly, the mind boggles. Or is the mind the indirect noun? Perhaps it should be ‘Truly, the mind is being boggled’.

Lisa took the train from Chicago to California, and got to see all kinds of cool stuff on the way. Now she is living in Fresno with some of our sorority sisters from that chapter and seeing as much as possible while she does free-lance graphic design work. I think this is pretty neat.

Charlie “Brown” is in Cali too, but I’m not sure where…when he gets back he is moving to Oxford, OH to go to grad school at Miami University. That’s about a forty minute drive from my parents house so I’m hoping to get up there to see him before school starts. Such a pretty campus!

Juliet went to South Dakota for a missions trip and saw Mt. Rushmore. She says it is smaller than you would think. I called her while she was there; apparently you can still get cell phone service out there, although right near my parents’ house– beside two major subdivisions and one mile from the Hamilton city limits– you can’t get any reception at all. This summer…soon I think…she is moving to Miami, Florida– which is considerably more exotic than Miami University of Ohio– to work with a missions group in Little Havana. This sucks because I will be here until after she has moved and I will miss her. A lot. I’m pricing cheap flights in December as we speak, but it’s looking like I will have to have foot surgery over my Christmas break so we’ll just have to see how it all works out schedule-wise.

Steve, who volunteered at the Rohs St. Cafe and taught English Comp 101, 102, 103 series classes to ignorant and apathetic college freshman at UC, has moved to New Hampshire. He is going to get his doctorate there. I hope he has survived all of the rain.

Dave and Alan, co-workers from UC SALD back home, are co-oping in New York City. Lucky DAAPers.

Callie went to Mexico on a missions trip. She had a great time. A bunch of my co-workers here at Community Christian Church are going to Mexico on a mission trip in a couple of weeks, too. I’m jealous.

My dad has been spending alot of time in Erie Pennsylvania looking at trains for GE Transportation (formerly known as GE Aircraft Engines and GE Rail). He loves this. I thought he was taking a significant cut in the glamour of the job when he took his current assignment, but he still is officially under GEAE payroll and will probably get an AE job again when this assignment is over. And besides he says it is every little boy’s dream to work with trains. He has pulled out his harmonica and is playing it a lot and has burned a cd with just songs about trains. He had quite an adventure on his first trip there; his plane was re-routed or something and he wound up renting a car and driving part of the way to avoid taking the bus provided by the airline– and he gave a little old lady on his flight a ride too. Come to think of it he helped a little old lady find her connecting flight in Paris de Gaulle the last time he came home from Poland, too. My dad is such a boy scout. He’s adorable.

If I’ve forgotten anyone it is not because I don’t love you. Post a comment and tell me where you are or where you’ve been!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 20th, 2004 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.