Hey Hope

Our uber progressive 80-year-old neighbor Harold has put his sign back up on his shed for the summer (Human beings: often clever: rarely wise). He sometimes pairs this with his “love Jews, love Palestinians” signs.

Harold frequently invites Andy to go on walks around the nearby park or for coffee so they can discuss politics and religion (something Andy has NO interest whatsoever in doing, but regardless he will accept an invitation to walk occasionally).

Today, June 11, I was surprised to get a clearly-frustrated-but-polite email (with a bunch of people cc’d) from External Person’s boss like *toe tapping* “um, are you submitting that report????”

And I was like “um, yes, per the explicit instructions, I submitted it to External Person, on May 12, via email, I will forward it again and cc you.”

So I do, just to him and External Person, not the whole big cc group, and he’s all “oh so sorry, many thanks, must have gotten lost in the shuffle”

and in my mind I was like, no biggie, mistakes happen, and moved on.

But then many hours later, External Person wrote the whole cc group, “Thank you for forwarding again! While I wasn’t able to locate the initial submission from 5/12, I can confirm I’ve received it now!”

And, like, no, YOU DID RECEIVE IT ON MAY 12, and my program lead and I know this and now your boss does too. You could’ve just said sorry like he did (or said nothing since he already apologized!) and moved on? I mean, I’m sorry if you messed up your email or accidentally deleted it or whatever, but it was sent to you per the instructions, in the proper timeframe, and the problem was on your end!

1) Bach Around the Block: a “progressive organ recital” of all Bach pieces that starts at one historic church downtown and then you walk to a second historic church and finally a third for the finale

2) My friend’s native plants talk & tour at the library where she works about how they created a Monach Waystation and then eventually transitioned all the library’s green spaces, including parking lot islands, to native plantings

I’m back in MI after two weeks in WV/Baltimore, working till 11pm some nights for special events, wild times.

I had installed most of my seedlings before leaving and was curious to check on them this morning.

To my great delight, all three eutrochium fistulosum seedlings now look like this (while pretty much everything else looks normal).

Last night they were wearing their city connect jerseys, which are a very simple design, all black with yellow trim around the edges, and somehow these uniforms made every single player look SUPER sexy.

Which is in direct contrast to Baltimore’s former all-black city connect jerseys, which looked awful and somehow the font on the front made every single player look like a cop.

ETA:

I requested a start date of August 3 for the new gig and once I have the official confirmation of that we’ll start rolling out a transition plan.

I kind of hate this! I love my job and it is so hard to leave it. When I’m in the office this week I know I’ll have to face the CEO which will be gut wrenching. And the board chair. And my team! My 13 year anniversary is in a few weeks.

Rules: without naming them, post 10 of your favourite films and then tag 10 people to do the same.

Which is not a surprise since their voicemail message talks about how if you know them you should just text them & how they don’t pick up the phone/like talking on the phone.

…and this is a job that requires you to be making and taking phone calls every day. (I mean I don’t like talking on the phone but I do it! It’s part of my job). So it’s like…you’re applying for this specific role…why?

I loved it, it had a fun vibe & amazing cinematography, but during some parts, I was kind of embarrassed to find myself tearing up? At a CATERPILLAR DOCUMENTARY???

The real reason started to emerge as I sat there. It is so easy to be discouraged with and overwhelmed by *gestures vaguely* everything. And I was watching people on screen (the people at The Caterpillar Lab and the other ppl interviewed ) who care really deeply about something important-yet-misunderstood and are working, day in, day out, to make a difference in the world.

And I was sitting in a packed theater with people of all ages who also care about something and want to learn more and want to do what they can to make a difference.

And it made me think of how many wonderful people I know (including YOU) who also give a damn about all kinds of things and try to make a difference, to be a net positive force in the world in some way, even though things can feel so hopeless sometimes.

I got up on a ladder the other night to take a before picture of my new garden bed, and this morning I went to the opening day of the local native plant nursery.

It was pandemonium! The nursery is tucked into the woods in a clearing, and there is isn’t a parking lot, you’re kind of parking in between trees, so they have a bunch of people directing cars and it was absolutely slammed, which made me happy to see.

I came away with some things that I have seeds for but ran out of room to start (so I’ll start them now and hopefully plant more in autumn): little bluestem, rattlesnake master, prairie dropseed, purple coneflower.

And also some things that I don’t have seeds for and am excited to try: prairie smoke, tall coreopsis, hollow joe pye, rose sedge, showy goldenrod, a type of gentian (not andrewsii but I can’t remember) and baptisa bracteata (can’t remember the common name).

And then I’ve got all the stuff I started seeds for too!

And the kidney values are all in the “normal” range for someone with *two* kidneys, which of course wasn’t the case with the values back in December a week post surgery, and they said could take a year or two to even out, assuming the remaining kidney did its work well & started getting a little bigger & etc. Immense gratitude to see that.

And I’ve gotten to see a few pictures of my little recipient lately looking happy with his best friend and on a trip with his mom and, like all 4-year-olds, he looks SO much more grown up every few months. My heart can barely take it.