Top 10 things I loved about living in the city...more specifically on "the block"

10. watching raccoons go through trash cans in the ally...

9. This guy (Andrew) talking to me about his job in the CIA and FBI (he works for both) as a special operative...the cops know it and leave him alone ;) wink, wink...8. Saying "HEY-eeee" to my friends /security guards at the ATF building on a daily basis to and from the metro...They always ask about my day :)

7. Being called "jenny from the block" even though I loathe the name jenny (for myself...it seems to innocent for me).

6. The sun setting over houses that are over 100 years old (disclaimer: the rest of #7 is pretty cheesy). I like to make up stories about exciting untold stories these houses would have if they could talk...these houses have such amazing architecture and have had multiple demographics occupy them over the decades! If only walls could talk :D


(I know the ATF building isn't old...but the contrast of blue and orange is so striking...and I bet their walls would have good stories also). Absolutely magnificent sunsets! side story...I was walking home when I saw how beautiful the sunset was...so I RAN home, grabbed my camera and RAN back up the ally to O street to get shot shown first (I missed the best shot). 3 guys and a lady where walking up O street when I came running out of the ally and as I was taking the shot I heard them say "white lady running out of the ally on O street with a camera in her hands! Let's get the #@*% out of here!"...LOL

5. 20 minute commute to work

4. being able to walk anywhere I want to go.

3. Saturday morning pastries at Catina's bakery and vanilla latte's at Big Bear.

2. The sound of the metro bus...my all time favorite sound of the city is the "chon choon choooon" sequence the bus makes as it is changing gears or slowing down! I know, I know...some people would think it's the sound of urine hitting the ground or a house...but alas, it is not that ;)

Drum roll please....

1. Walking down N. Capital and getting asked on a weekly basis: "Scuuuz me ma'am...you lost?...you need some d'rections?"


THE ONLY REASON I LOVE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS...
**I get to see the Tshibaka's every day (except when they are on vacation!)

My life has resorted to top 10 lists.

July 4th, 2009

Yay for Independence day as a National holiday and yay for taking an extra day off from work...National holiday + vacation day = 4 day weekend!! Kelly Brooke and I drove up to my aunt and uncles lake house (Lake Mohawk, Sussex County New Jersey...The GARDEN state people!) late Thursday night and I rode back with Chris and Becky (and Abby) on Monday afternoon. What a relaxing weekend! The weekend consisted of boating, eating, sleeping (ie. hammock napping) and more eating! Here's a pretty short weekend photo documentary

Friday morning we slept in, ate a big brunch and went for a boat ride. We were stopped/floating talking to this guy from Brooklyn (known Mafia connections) about his 4th party (say this with a Brooklyn accent...a thick Brooklyn accent) "320 sausages, 30 racks of lamb, 30 racks of ribs, 50 pounds of ice cream (he had a name for this special ice cream and it was not gelato). You know, the works. We got four guys working the whole thing" ... we look over and a HUGE black bear is walking through the little yard next door. of course I am surrounded by idiots and everyone ran towards the bear to get a better picture. Everyone on our boat (non-idiots) stayed ON the boat. I tried to get a good pic from my (crappy) camera phone as the bear literally BROKE the fence by barely pushing on it to escape the moron's chasing him. VERY EXCITING :) sorry I didn't actually get the bear standing up pushing the fence...instead you can see the fence broken and the faint outline of the bears rump as he ran away...Beautiful creature!
We took off down to the boardwalk and putzed around for a while on the beach and the little town. Kelly had never been.


Abby, Chris and Becky arrived and Abby spent the rest of the weekend letting us all know who and what was hers (ie. my aunt jj...my mommy, my juice, my boat, etc...) and trying to feed me because I obviously looked emaciated from only eating 3 times a day ;)


Kelly isn't a huge fan of tubing so we zipped across the lake at a speed of about 5...5 miles per hour ;) She was paranoid I would do something devious to throw her out...I wouldn't do that...to her

This guy on the other hand I would totally throw out of the tube if given the chance. My uncle drove much faster on this trip. We were in the Ski Nautique, so he was whipping around corners and stirring up some huge waves. I have a huge bruise on my left hip/back (literally about 6 inches in diameter) from this tube ride. Chris (my older brother) tried numerous times to throw me out...here we are fighting over the middle handle coming up on a wicked turn.

Abby loved the tube. she was a little apprehensive at first and held on tight. When my brother would let go to wave to the camera she would say "hold on daddy"...but she finally loosened up and started waving while the tube was going; and when they hit some waves Abby would laugh and yell "again, again!!". When we stopped the boat she stood up and yelled "yay!!" and clapped!! She is soooo precious!!

She wanted to lay like Jj on the back of the boat...the life jacket was hilarious. She looked like a sumo wrestler trying to maneuver her way around!

Abby loved going on the boat. She wanted me to take her in the canoe for supper on Sunday night..we opted to just take the deck boat instead ;) She absolutely hated her life jacket and said "jj, take off! peas take off" We talked her into keeping it on anytime she go on a boat, moving or not.

This was taken with my crappy camera phone on the way home from supper Sunday night and it cracks me up...it's so elongated for some reason and it looks like the end of an old 70's Western!


The long ride home (6 hours...it's a 4.5 hour trip! LOL)! Thanks Debbie and Will for an awesome weekend!!

In other news: I must have turned 90 this year and someone forgot to tell me. I managed to pull my lower back muscle somehow over the course of the last 48 hours (lifting the canoe, planks, tubing, or stretching before my run...take your pick) and it somehow caught up with me yesterday mid morning... I am now in a back brace (a very discreet one though...you can't tell. It's more like a girdle!! LOL) I'm on steroids and muscle relaxers and I'm in 4 weeks of PT... I'm going to go ahead and register for my AARP card so I can start getting better discounts ;)

MY half BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!

Dear loyal blog readers!! Please mark your calendars!! My half birthday is tomorrow, July 2nd. All to often I suffer from the 2-in-1 gifting since my birthday is so close to Christmas and that just sucks!! So about 4 years ago I started celebrating my half birthday. Do I get a party this year...? Kinda! I'll be at the lake so that will be party in itself. I do love attention :D
Gifts are not necessary, but I will take note if you do not give me one ;) (just kidding...or am I?!)

I've come a long way from the little trouble maker I used to be :)

Jenn E. from the...suburbs?!?!?!

Well my loyal fan base...the season of change has started to bud and Lord knows when the bloom will come, but it will come! I have officially moved off the block I have called home for the past 2 years. All my stuff is packed nicely in a 10x10 climate and bug controlled unit up on Bladensburg road and I am officially a transient!...only I don't pee on the streets

How am I surviving you ask?? Well that's a good question. With no real sense of placement or routine it is making me a little bit anxious, but still VERY excited about what lies ahead! I plan to stay with Chris and Becky (my brother and sis-in law...this allows some quality time with the most precious niece EVER!! see picture where she's holding "baby Shelley"!! haha, she named her baby after my mom...she's a ball if energy!) for a week or two and then move on to the Tshibaka resisdence (where my clothes already reside in a nice big closet in the guest bedroom) down off of rt. 1 in Alexandria. Kelly Brooke is living with the Tsibaka's also (as of Saturday) while we look for a house, so she will be driving me to the metro on the way to work every morning since I don't own a car. My dog is at summer camp (aka: Gammy's house) and my lil'kitty (who thinks she is part dog/ part human) is resting comfortably in the guest bedroom window at my brother & sis in laws house. Comfortable that is until Abby runs in innocently screaming "KITTY CAT!! HERE KITTY CAT!!" and freaks poor Chloe out since she is not used to kids. (Shameless plug: I need someone to foster my cat for the next couple of weeks...until I find a place to live...just look at those big beautiful eyes asking for a loving home in the meantime...and to my loyal Tunisian fan base -> that is a Tunisian television station playing in the background!)

The search for a house continues! Kelly Brooke and I have prayed specifically for certain features and conveniences and so far have not found a rent house that provides a peace about making the decision. Therefor we have now broadened our scope to purchasing a house. One of our prayers is for a 3rd roommate and we are quite certain that we've been provided one! Yay! we found her!! Double Yay!

So things are up in the air for an undetermined amount of time, but strangely enough Kelly Brooke and I are both COMPLETELY ok with that..."And I will provide a place for my people (that refers to me!)... and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed (ie: without a house)..." 2 Samuel 7:10

So, with all of this said...I am SO EXCITED to see what happens next and where I'll end up! In the meantime, I am going to enjoy living in the suburbs for a change and try to enjoy the "peace and quiet" while I have it...Maybe my life will slow down a little bit or at least allow me to catch up with people I haven't talked to in a while.

Special thanks to: My mom/Gammy for watching Montana for me; Chris and Becky for letting me stay and keep my cat there for a little bit; Kelly and Niki Tshibaka for offering up their home and being so excited about having me stay(!); Dawn & Ray for offering up their guest bedroom also; Kelly Brooke for driving me around in her pimp volvo; Chirine and Monaem for allowing me to stay in their guest room the past month and everyone who is helping us look for a house!!

"I'm not white!?..."

I was cussed out again last night by one of the "leaners". A leaner is a term that I coined for the persons in my neighborhood that take a multitude of pills and/or other controlled or illegal substances; get so high that they essentially fall asleep standing up. The "sleep" mode that they go into is trance like and causes them to "lean" in all directions but never quite fall over...thus comes my term "leaner". So this woman came in to the B&V market (which now has a nice new space mid-block rather than on the corner) for who knows what. Chirine and I were "in the store" (meaning we were behind the bullet proof acrylic wall...it was Chirine first time in!) talking to Brionni and Teddy about houses and the new store. The woman was unsuccessfully trying to put a pen on the turnstile and pretty much ended up with her butt to the glass, and her nose almost to the floor.

Side note: The Leaners are similar to zombies. They are essentially tranced out and unaware of their surroundings. However, a loud noise and they are wide "awake" and most of the time mean.

So Brionni leans over and slaps the glass right where the woman's butt is (after I pretended to pinch her butt through the glass). The woman immediately started yelling about "why would he think it's funny to scare her" as she struggles to stand up. She comes over to where Brionni and I were standing and proceeds to yell at "us" through the glass. I say "us" since we really don't know what she was yelling and more specifically to whom she was really yelling. She looks at me looking at her and asked what the (expletive) was I looking at. I let her know that since we had no idea who she was talking to we were all listening and I apologized if she wasn't directing her conversation towards me.

So here's the deal: I grew up on military bases in Europe where my classes consisted of every race, mixed and not mixed. I did not understand the reasoning behind racism growing up and I do not understand it now. Skin color describes the exterior appearance of a person; it does not define who a person is (despite cultural stereotypes), where they should live or how they should act... So when this woman informed me that I did not belong in this neighborhood and I was trying to be a "negro" I decided to not respond...she continued to cuss me out through the glass, cuss out Teddy and Brionni more, then back to me. Then she started in on me because I was white. I found that the "brain/mouth" sensor was indeed turned off at that point because I replied "I'm not white!?". "what color are you then (expletive) cause you ain't pink...you ain't blue... (expletive, expletive)...
I let her know I was tan. I've worked very hard to get this light golden brown tone... apparently that wasn't funny.

She eventually left and went back outside to loiter with the other leaners. Chirine was a little bit scared as this was her first encounter with a leaner. We waited a little bit to let the lady simmer down and to let Chirine relax a little before leaving. This was not my first encounter with a leaner and I learned that the best thing to do is just ignore them. No matter how nice you are (even if just to say "hi, how are you today" you will most likely be perceived to have a condemning attitude and you will be yelled at)...I need to work on taking my own advice.

All joking about my skin color aside...racism sucks. My first day to step foot on this block I was called a "white B*@#&^"... I had to make a decision right then and there. Live in fear of my surroundings because my skin is lighter... or love the people around me no matter what color, what background, what they've done (or not done), what they say or how they view me. I chose the latter. The Lord has changed me exponentially over the past year...I am filled with joy even in challenging situations ("The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy! Psalm 126:3...exclamation mark added). I find I have been more blessed by the people, friends and children in this neighborhood than anywhere else I have ever lived and I cannot let the ignorance of others (or my own for that matter) prevent me from receiving those blessings.

The realization I admitted (I say admitted because I always pretend like it doesn't bother me and I turn it into a joke) this morning is that it truly, truly hurts. Racism hurts. It has cut right to the core of me and made me second guess who I am. Are the things that have been said to me over the past 2+ years true? Do I really not belong here? Did I do anything to warrant that comment? Ok, ok...did I somewhat instigate this woman yesterday?...yes. She is not mentally there, I should have ignored her from the beginning. However, saying "good morning" and getting a verbal rocket attack or standing on the sidewalk looking in an opposite direction and being snobbishly called names due to my lack of melanin is not anything I can prevent. I also refuse to change who I am to avoid potential berating. If someone is offended that I say good morning or that I live in certain place, that is their problem to deal with not mine and I must remember that. Love others consistently (this is a tough one) and treat people with respect (remembering that everyone has a different definition of respect). But despite the overwhelming joy that I have for life...at the end of the day, it hurts...no matter whose "problem" it is to deal with.

"Love God, Love others...nothing else matters" Matthew 22:37-40

The Juror

I have had the honor of being selected to report for jury duty (oooh, ohhhhh!! PICK ME! PICK ME!!). I have been obsessing about this opportunity for at least 4 years now! I am ECSTATIC to serve the District of Columbia Superior Court!!

I have always wanted to be on a high profile trial...I want to be the bleeding heart conservative that can't make up her mind and in turn is the "swing vote" that will determine the outcome. With all this in mind... the plan: after the trial get an amazing book deal (that of course turns into a movie & Katherine Heigl will play me), make some serious bank thus allowing me to travel the world on a really BIG catamaran (of course working remotely because I don't want to quit my job!)...

July 15th is the big day...what to wear?...what to wear??!

seriously...if I don't get selected I'll probably cry right there in front of the judge and scream "WHY NOT?!"! Then sue the city for discrimination ;)

Vinoria Nampemba

I sponsored this little girl last year through World Vision at the Women of Faith conference. I must say, it has been such a rewarding experience. She is one of 9 children; her family lives in a community severely affected by HIV/AIDS. Her letters are such a sweet reminder that there is joy in life even when surrounded by poverty and illness! She turns 8 this July, and she writes the cutest letters wishing me the 'love of Jesus' and 'blessings for me and my family'... so wonderful to read.

Anyway...one of her letters she said her dad needed a new cow and 2 goats. So I called up world vision and asked how much something like that would cost. a goat is $75 and a cow is $150... "Ok, sign me up to send the Nampemba's a goat please". I just got this letter (about 2 months later) with the photo's below... I cannot say how incredibly rewarding it was to see this little girl smiling from ear to ear with all of the items she was able to buy spread out in front of her and to have a picture with her mom!
Thanks to a poor economy worldwide, Vinoria's World Vision representative who brought them the money was able to negotiate well enough to get TWO goats, a new dress for Vinoria, new shoes, a new shirt and shorts, a blanket and a water bottle! PLUS, they also had enough money to transport themselves there and back(with the goats) rather than walk.

"Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me" Matthew 25.40

I recommend sponsoring a child to anyone, regardless of your faith...it's a beautiful thing :)



Sorry, the pictures are a little dark...they weren't digital ;)