It IS my ash after all...

I woke up in the middle of the night to the smell of fire. I knew it was the Sylmar fire, almost 20 miles away, so I said a prayer and went back to sleep. When I left the following morning for a conference, I looked at my car coated in ash and a strange thought passed over me - "That's not my ash." I didn't really recognize that thought as something that would come out of me, so I again said a prayer and drove off.

Well, I was wrong.  Turns out it was indeed my ash.  It was Oakridge Mobile Home ash, from those many miles away.  I am a limited partner (very limited) in Oakridge, and when my brother emailed me that the Oakridge investment was now the Oakridge ash, my heart sank. Not for the effect on the investment. But for the loss that I was now somehow connected with. For the sorrow of 600 homeowners.



I hate it when newscasters talk about "multimillion dollar homes" going up in flames. A home is a home. A trailer is a home as much as a mansion is. Maybe even more. So, to the people at Oakridge, I say that there is no such thing as your ash and my ash. This is our ash and I pray that from that ash comes strength, support, love, and a growing measure of comfort and hope.

Not Islam

Sometimes the only thing you really know about something is what you know it's not.  

Well, it's not hard to figure out that the stoning of a 13 year old rape victim IS NOT, contrary to militants' claims, a directive of Islam.  

Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was raped by three men while walking to visit her grandmother in Mogadishu, Somalia. She took her story to the authorities who answered her pleas by accusing her of adultery.  And sentencing her to death.  At age 13.

If that scenario is hard to imagine, the following is impossible to imagine.  

Aisha was then taken to a stadium in Kismayu.

Placed in a hole.

Where 50 men threw stones at her.

In front of 1,000 spectators.

At one point, nurses were asked to un-bury her from the stones to check on her - to see if she was dead.  

She wasn't dead at the first check, so they placed her back in the hole.

And stoned her until she died.

"He who is without sin, cast the first stone."

I have no choice but to pray to see Aisha in the embrace of her tender, loving Creator who reminds her every moment of her innocence. For eternity.

Whereby Anne and Rob leave their provisional adopted son to go to DC to visit their actual daughter...

On Saturday we flew to DC to see Em. We met for dinner and got a tour of the abode, which we loved. Loved the location, loved the decor (especially the Last Supper painting), love the vegetable garden, loved Levin the dog, even though it greeted us by emptying his bladder in the entry. 

On Sunday we went to the church that's within spittin' distance of American University. Coincidentally, it's where my wonderful former college roommate, Lee (aka Emily, which must have been where I got the name for my Emily), attends, but, alas, she was at son Wesley's soccer game that morning. Afterward, Em took us on the grand tour of American.  We thought of poor Jacqui Kemp, toiling away in Rome on her semester abroad...

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

Ok, are these the cutest little white chocolate capitals and monuments you've ever seen?

From Providence/DC 10.08

Our big outing for the day was to the somewhat new "Newseum." It's a museum about news (hence the name). The building itself is really unique. Part of it looks like newspapers stacked up (at least to me) and it has the First Amendment carved out of marble in hard-to-miss giant lettering on the front. 

From Providence/DC 10.08

Along the street, there are displays of that day's newspapers from every state. So interesting to see how different they are.

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

When you first walk in, you see a large portion of the Berlin Wall, along with an entire watch tower. I have a small chunk of the wall, given to me by my mom and dad who had a bigger chunk that my mom actually chiseled off herself, if I'm remembering that correctly. I'm thinking that maybe that might have sounded like an okay thing to do at the time if you were an East German. But it's a little harder to figure out why my mom felt empowered to chip away at it.

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

They had an exhibit on G-men which I learned meant "Government Men." I never thought to ask...

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

Below are John Dillinger's straw hat and cigar and glasses and bulletproof vest. Guess which one of those he left behind on July 22, 1934 when he was shot by FBI agents?

From Providence/DC 10.08

Next are items from Russian spy Rudolph Abel - his fake passport, lenses, hollow nickel for transporting microfilm, a hollow screw where he hid codes, and cuff links used to send messages to his superiors. I watched enough "Get Smart" and "Man From U.N.C.L.E." episodes to be completely awe-struck by all this. My mom would have loved this too. She's the one who cornered FBI Director William Webster in his office during the Reagan Inaugural and wouldn't leave him alone until he told her all he knew about the Kennedy assassination...

From Providence/DC 10.08

And from another spy, Robert Hanssen, a palm pilot, Russian/English dictionary, and items used to mark his drops. (See, I've got the lingo down now...)

From Providence/DC 10.08

Here is the gas can used for the Lindbergh kidnapping ransom, along with the listing of the serial numbers of all the bills used for the ransom.

From Providence/DC 10.08

Below is the ransom note from the SLA regarding Patty Hearst.

From Providence/DC 10.08

Here is one of the letters from Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, along with one of his packages. His entire cabin is inside the museum, about which he is deeply annoyed.

From Providence/DC 10.08

And here is the door used in Watergate.

From Providence/DC 10.08

One of the other amazing parts of the newseum is the view from the balcony.

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

I usually don't take pictures of toilet seat cover dispensers, but I especially loved the random bathroom tiles with actual newspaper misquotes.

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

Rob trying in vain to get Em as excited as he is about his new iPhone apps...

From Providence/DC 10.08

And, finally, we arrive back at the abode, greeted by Josh with his inflatable space shuttle and Becky with Levin the pup. Made us happy to think of Em living with such wonderful and funny friends. 

From Providence/DC 10.08

This is not a political statement...

This is simply an alert to whoever writes the titles that go on Tivo. Sometimes there are unintended consequences to their decisions... (click on image to enlarge)

Back to School...

Rob and I went back to Providence for Parents' Weekend at RISD. No, to our knowledge, we are not the parents of any student currently attending RISD. We just really like Parents' Weekend so we went anyway. We begged Claire's friend, Andrew, if we could adopt him for the weekend. Turns out his father was coming on Saturday, so Andrew cleared us for Thursday and Friday only. But his girlfriend (and Claire's former roommate), Kate, was in town, so we got two for the price of one. Frankly, it wouldn't have been nearly as fun if we didn't get to spend time with those two.

From Providence/DC 10.08

On Friday we went to the new Chihuly exhibit on campus.  Dale Chihuly is a great example of finding your niche after graduating from college. In the 60's, he majored in interior design at the University of Washington, then got enrolled in the first glass program in the country, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  He then came to RISD and earned an M.A. in ceramics. RISD asked him to start up a glass program for them in 1969.  He taught there until the late 80's. Now his work is a part of over 200 museum collections around the world. I love that he has a massively beautiful ceiling in the Wynn hotel in Vegas, as well as a chandelier in the entry of the Victoria and Albert in London. That's a broad appeal. The following are works from his students:

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

And here are the site-specific pieces he designed for the new Chase Center at RISD. I had Rob stand in front during a few of the photos so you can see how large the pieces are. 

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

This is the most glorious one of all. Look at the reflections on the wall and on the floor....

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

It wouldn't be a Parent's Weekend without Rob and Anne visiting classes, so we went to Shanth Enjeti's class in character design. Shanth is one of Claire's favorite professors and if you follow my blog, you will have seen similar photos from last year.  This was our third time visiting his class so the professor even called on Rob to answer a question. There were at least 5 of Claire's friends there which made it even more fun. 

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

Then, not knowing what to do next, we were invited to Andrew's class in cinema lighting and watched him as the cameraman on a shoot. We're very proud of our temporarily adopted son.

From Providence/DC 10.08

Shanth then drove us out to Monica and Nick Jainschigg's home.  Nick is the other favorite professor. It wasn't until we saw his studio that we completely understood the connection with Claire. I will illustrate with photos.

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

From Providence/DC 10.08

On Saturday we went to the alumni sale. It is by far the most wonderful art fair I've ever been to. We bought another mechanical bug (a dragonfly this time) but it's being finished so I'll post a photo when he arrives at his new home. Below is the mass of humanity that is the alumni sale.

From Providence/DC 10.08

And in the midst of the mass of humanity, we managed to find Shanth and his wife, Lauren, and the twins. Shanth says that every night as they go to sleep he tells them, "One of you is my favorite and I'm not going to tell you which. But it's close!" 

From Providence/DC 10.08

And finally, we say good bye to all the folks at Kate's mom's booth - Red Rover Clothing. There's me, Andrew, Kate, and Kate's dad, Chris.  We had to leave early to catch a plane to DC to see Em. More on that in my next post.

From Providence/DC 10.08