Coastal confessions, smelly feet, and the (painless) fleecing of AmeriCorps I just bought two tickets for the Jimmy Buffett concert up here in August. I got out easy and still spent too much. But what the heck?

So this Wednesday I headed on down to Newport for a few days in VISTA training sessions. We stayed in a Mariott along the water that was under construction. Brown water, sawdust, dry chicken, all that. Right away the VISTA's were pulled together for an afternoon session about conflict mediation. ("I didn't need it, but I know plenty of people I interact with who did!" lol.) Sitting there I realized however that in my hurrying to pack that morning I only threw in one pair of socks. Naturally I pointed this out to the group that for the next three days I was facing survival on only one pair of socks. I figured I could make it work.

The next day we had an innnnnnnnteresting work session that lasted all day. It was led by Burt, one of the persons who founded AS-220 here in Providence and also by Adam, a former VISTA and current doctoral student out in Berkeley. (among other things). I won't go into to much of what we discussed, but the overall point was to tell our story, our motivations regarding where we are (in geography and in life), who we are, and why we are doing what we are doing. It built on that and everything from Henry 5th to the more modern day realities within ourselves and one another. Maybe some of us even bonded. awwwwww. Maybe some of us didn't. aww.

The conference yesterday interesting on some different levels. Morning came early, I'll put it that way. The morning session the AmeriCorps members attended was more or less for us to tell the guys in charge what they should do to make the program better for the future, what we didn't like, and what we would like to change, etc etc. We really didn't get much out of it specifically, but maybe some connections were made individually, so maybe it wasn't an entire shear. Plus we split into small groups and my few took a stroll down along the Cliff Walk, resting at a point on the bluffs in front of the Breakers' Mansion. That was cool.
Over lunch we explored some more and talked about the fleecing or not that happened in our morning session. And then several VISTA's skipped out early, hahaha. I don't blame them really, and might have joined them had it not been for the fact that I had to lead an afternoon session. It turned out to be small ("intimate and intense" I told my executive director) and we hald a in-depth discussion for a few hours about emergency planning and disaster worse case scenarios. If I had processed it completely, I would have been scared shitless. Sorry for the cursing, but it's the truth. This country is not prepared, from New Orleans to Newport to Newhart (well, maybe Bob has some bottled water and a manual can opener kept away, I dont know) and the small turnout at my session made me realize that maybe no one really cares (past saying so) that much about being so. It's hard, yeah, but it's important. Educate yourself first, face reality that it might be you and your family alone first, then help comes later. But know how to be ready now! And I know the images from Katrina resonate among some of us daily, so we press on. It was inspiring and overwhelming all at once but the joy of talking with people about these issues really made the afternoon pass rapidly. Afterwards for presenting the Volunteer Center gave me a gift...turned out to be a sweater. Interesting choice as a gift for a conference presenter, right? I totally didn't expect that...a few free meals was more than enough! (plus well...it is my job). But I would never complain, it's a nice gesture, I understand their side and all is well. So we cleaned up, I stayed behind and explored the area a little, snapping off some pictures, watching surfers.
Then I dialed up some Buffett and hit the road back up to P-town. Upon arriving home it really hit me...my feet smelled bad! I started out w/my windows rolled down, but I rolled them up to make a few phone calls. Big mistake. BIG mistake.  ¶ 3/11/2006 10:41:00 AM