This was definitely a fun day at the office today! I got to meet my predecessor at Food & Water Watch, a woman named Lis. She left so much information for me as far as how to do the job while I got the hang of things, and now I finally got to thank her. Additionally, Leah, a former Food & Water Watch coworker, was also in town, and so with these two visiting, we had a little office get-together after work. So fun. Knowing they were coming, I brought my “duckie” camera to work – the yellow rubber-covered Vivitar camera. And so here you are:
In this photo, left to right, are Leah, Lisa (a current coworker), and Lis. Nice bunch. You may actually recognize Leah from a previous Schumin Web appearance – Leah was at the 2007 State of the Union Address protest back before I came to Food & Water Watch, and showed up in one of the photos. Leah is another person who I really owe many thanks to, since she’s the one who told me about Idealist.org, which is the lead I needed, because that’s how I found out about Food & Water Watch. Then it was a coincidence that we ended up working together.
Leah also got to see that I’ve really gotten a lot more comfortable in my world than when I started, and am able to let what’s left of my hair down a little bit. For one thing, I would never wear flip flops to work on Friday in my early days. Now, I feel comfortable about being that casual on casual Friday.
Meanwhile, since we were also celebrating some birthdays, we had cake:
We got this flourless cake from Sticky Fingers. I ended up not having any, either of that one or the one in the background, so I can’t tell you how it was. It’s funny, though – notice how the cake is slightly off-kilter? That’s a phenomenon known as “When Elevators Attack”. There’s an elevator in our building that won’t sense when a person is in the doorway, and will try to close the door on you. The box that the cake was in got attacked by the elevator door. Seriously, just pow. Oops.
Otherwise, while I’m thinking about it, this is a video that I’ve been meaning to show you for about a month or so now. I actually was in a Take Back the Tap video that was posted on YouTube, and it came out okay. Take a look…
Let me just say this: I am not an actor, nor do I play one on TV. And I’m not that good about disguising the fact that I’m reading off cue cards, either. Nonetheless, it made my mother very proud to see me on someone else’s YouTube channel. It’s like seeing original photos of myself outside of Schumin Web. Seeing photos of myself on Schumin Web, sure. Seeing my photos from Schumin Web off of Schumin Web, sure, whatever. Seeing photos of me outside of Schumin Web that didn’t originate here? Cool! And I hope you remember to drink tap water rather than bottled water, if nothing else because of the cost difference. Water from a public source is really inexpensive, vs. bottled water, which costs more than gasoline, even with gas in the $3.60 per gallon range like it is currently.
And lastly, the pile of junk outside my apartment complex was still there when I left for work this morning:
And gone by evening:
Needless to say, that stuff was truly ruined by the morning, as it had rained heavily all night. I’m glad to see it all go, too, since it obstructed pedestrian access to my morning bus stop. I actually had to walk in the street to get to my bus stop, rather than use the sidewalk like you’re supposed to. Some people speculated that the stuff was likely there due to an eviction, where someone’s stuff was removed and placed on the sidewalk, but I suppose we’ll never know…