Today, as I was driving down Lee St., I saw a seemingly homeless man looking through a garbage bin. He took out a 40 oz beer bottle, which still had some beer in it. He unscrewed the cap and started to pour the remaining beer out in a little grassy area. So, I thought maybe he was collecting plastic and glass bottles to cash in for money. But I was wrong. He then placed the empty glass bottle (sans cap) in the recycling bin seated next to the garbage bin.

Very cool.

Bangin Nachos: It's What's For Dinner

My sister gave me a cookbook for graduation entitled, "Help! My Apartment Has A Kitchen."  This is exactly how I feel about the entire subject, so it was perfect.  I've technically only made one thing from it, but I have eaten it multiple times and it never gets old, so I wanted to share.  If I can do it, you can too!

What you need:

18-20 tortilla chips

1 cup shredded Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese

1 8-ounce can refried beans

1 scallion (also called a green onion)

1 small ripe avocado or 1/2 large ripe avocado (optional)

1-2 tablespoons sliced black olives (optional)

Salsa

Sour cream

What you do:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. For easy clean-up cover baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Place tortilla chips on baking sheet and cover them with spoonfuls of refried beans (you don't need to use the entire 8 oz can). 

Wash the scallion.  Cut off root tip and top 2 inches of green end and discard them.  Cut the remaining white and green parts into 1/4-inch pieces and scatter them onto the tortilla chips.

Peel and cut the avocado into 1/4-inch squares and sprinkle them onto the chips.

Sprinkle black olive slices onto chips.

Cover the entire concoction with cheese and bake for 5 minutes.

Don't forget to pile spoonfuls of salsa and sour cream on top before consuming/serving.

Seriously, do this. In fact I think I am going to right now! I also put some cooked chicken on there if I have any and substitute fresh tomatoes for the salsa.  I've gotten it down to an art in which I prepare the nachos while my oven is preheating - it's olympic.

Let me know if you all eat this, what your reactions are, and if you have any ideas for improvements!

Humanity

It's 9.26pm by my watch and I have wasted yet another day filled with unproductivity and exercise.  To balance my couch-bound day (and to make myself look/feel a little less lazy) I did go for a run and participated in African dance at the Center-City Park.  It had live drums, which is always necessary for this type of dance because the drum beats are the conductor.  It was pretty great - but I'm sure I looked nuts.  I tried some of the moves in front of my mirror when I got home and, sure enough, I looked way out of my element.  It was fun nonetheless.  Next week is yoga - ya'll should come!

This concept of humanity has been on my mind since Friday night when I watched a film with my friend about the topic of human trafficking.  It was a theatrical film in that it consisted of scripts, actors, and sets, but the plot was realistic and harshly (yet perhaps accurately) depicted the stories of human traffickers and those who are trafficked.  One of the women in the film, who had been sold into a brothel by a man she was dating, said something that has stuck with me.  She talked about how her and the other girls had seen their humanity ripped away from them.  They had experienced pure humiliation, oppression, and suppression and had violent acts committed against them.  These things demoralized them and deteriorated their feeling of being human.  Without humanity, what were they? Just objects.

So often this is what happens in the midst of oppression.  The demoralizing manipulation of the powerful on those without control.  And it's just so disgusting that someone would take away the one thing that makes her human, the one quality which separates her from the rest of the world, just to make money, to have power, to feel in control.  The human trafficking industry is so big - it's very alarming.  There are so many people involved, transnationally, which make it continue day in and day out.  How do they not see their sisters, mothers, or daughters in the faces of those that they violate?  Because, after all, these women and girls are not machines, but are humans with the ability to hope, aspire, and dream.

New-ness

So, there are two "new" things happening in my life - sporty and sappy.

First, I am now on day 10 of running/jogging.  I have gotten up (almost) every morning at 8:00 AM, run a 1.5 mile loop, where I get to see the business elite of Greensboro make their way to work and hungover college students take an early morning smoke on their porches.  I'm starting to really like it.

Second, I used to be the girl who never cried.  Never ever.  Ask my family and friends.  Brief, related anecdote: In my apartment last year, a rock which looked like a heart ended up laying around our living room for the better part of the year.  One of my roommates, cleverly, had brought it home - the irony was just too thick not to.  I was fiddling with it one night and my friend noted that it was much like my own heart - made of stone.  I laughed, he laughed, we laughed together.  It wasn't far from the truth.

But recently, I've become a sap!  I have trouble not crying at the slightest emotional or sentimental action/story/ritual/etc.  Have I really gotten in touch with that part of myself?? I constantly am having this great, overwhelming sense of the shortness of time, of the eminence of transition, of the quick shift of the now.  So when I watch movies or read books or go to a wedding or hear about someone's pain, I get the importance of it all and I have a physical reaction.  It's weird - very different.

Now, I haven't yet cried while I jogged.  I'll let you know as soon as that happens.

I Saw One Today

One day, a few years ago, I was riding in the car with my grandmother and mom.  It was sunny and warm and the car was carrying three generations of women to the grocery store - about 160 years of experiences moving together.  Sitting in the navigators chair (the power chair) Mimi looked up in the sky and noticed a jet trail.  She said, "Whenever I see those white lines in the sky I think of Bob (my Granddaddy).  It's his way of telling me to keep my head up, to keep going.  And that's what I do."

Every time I see one of those I not only think of Granddaddy, but I think of my Mimi who after 91 years of life and 7 years without Granddaddy, has her head upright looking forward.  Life hasn't gotten easier for her frail body, but she presses on with persistence and grace, eager to live and love.  She has hope and sass.  What more does she need?

Sometimes I wonder if I still know God, but I just don't realize it.

Also, if you're interested in means to social justice, especially cross-culturally, I think this article would be of great interest to you:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece

Reread at the end of July

I wanted to catalog this day because today I had this overwhelming sense of excitement for the future.  I was eating dinner with EJ and talking about the frustrations of finding a job, relationships, the summer, and the like.  I don't know what's next.  I have no plans, just hopes.  Nothing is concrete or laid out.  But, goodness, it's thrilling to think of a life of application.  A life consistent with my desires, dreams, ambitions.  All of them being lived out.

This day will fade away soon when I get bogged down again with the unknowing reality, but I just wanted to remind myself that it'll be okay.  It'll work itself out and opportunities will knock.