Thursday, September 18, 2008

falling behind


I knew this would happen. I said to myself that I would blog every day in order to keep a quasi diary while we are here. The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men gang aft agley
Ah well, Here we are anyway... if there is anything you would like me to elaborate on just post a comment at the bottom of this page!

Some things that are really Berkeley about Berkeley that i haven't mentioned before....

There is curbside composting pickup. Everything organic can go in the compost including anything paper that has touched food products (pizza boxes, paper napkins etc etc.). And meat, bones eggs.

Berkeley has fought to have 7 digit dialing so in Berkeley you needn't use 10 digits! I wonder how long that will last!

Now some things we have seen and done recently...

There were 12+ varieties of grapes at Berkeley Bowl. That is a LOT of choice! How do you decide? You have Heather there who worked at a grape ranch (really!) to help you out. that's what! I also had to decide between organic bananas and fair trade organic bananas - how ethical are you?

There are stunning pink amaryllis blooming on the sidewalk's edge. I don't know if/when someone would have planted them. They look a little funny because they are just 3 foot stalks with blooms on top- no foliage at all!.

There are lots of hummingbirds around. They love all the blooms in the neighbourhood.

Yesterday Ami and I joined Francis and Simon and their dad Shannon to go to release the crawdad/crayfish that F and S had caught in the stream at the UCal campus on their way home from school last week. They brought it home in a water bottle and fed it melon and grapes. it was quite happy being served me thinks!

Thursday nights are community night for the whole CDSP community. It means a Eucharist at 5:45, drinks after, and then dinner for everyone in the cafeteria with the meals on serving plates on the set tables. It is like a dinner at someone's home and the best part is that on Thursdays i don't have to think about dinner. Another great part is that the students have to pay the minimal 7 $ or so for the meal but their families eat for free! The kids in the community just love it too and they have all taken to sitting at their own table together. After dinner they run around all over the place and everyone hopes that at least one adult or older child is keeping an eye out on the fish pond in the little courtyard next to the cafeteria! The pond provided "a half baptism" of a kid last week. Whoops.

Ami is learning all about guns from the other boys in the housing complex.... But, he still doesn't want to read the page in Babar when his mother gets killed by the wicked hunter. That's my boy! We are really into Babar these days and I found "Babar and the Wully-Wully" and "Babar and Father Christmas" at a garage sale yesterday! yippeeee!!! more Babar!!

We still don't have a phone but I would love to hear from you on Skype! You can search me using my email address! Do it! it will be fun!!

Amiel
"Mum, what are white people?"
Mum
"well, have you noticed that people look different from each other?"
Amiel
"No"
Mum and Dad
"well, some people are chocolate coloured, some are pink, some are papyrus coloured"
Amiel (in a rather shrieking fashion)
"but Francis said there are WHITE people"
M & D
"you'd better ask Francis about that then!"

My garage sale-ing was very successful again this week. One of the main benefits seems to be that I have a better understanding of how Berkeley is set up from driving around to all the spots.

That's enough for now.
There's always more but if I wait this will never get posted...

4 comments:

Mum said...

Hi Phoebsie:
I love reading your BLOG. Those plants are called nirene's I think. They have pink blossoms that look like giant hyacinth and bloom at this time of year. I'm going to google them to see if I can find a picture of them. It is fun to be able to imagine your days down there in Berkeley. Sending love, Mum

Mum said...

Hi again Phoebs:
I went to the library and looked it up. It is a nirene but they are part of the amaryllis family, there is one variety that is 30 inches high and there are no leaves, that is probably the one you saw.
love Mum

Caitlin said...

ha ha
leave it to mum to figure out your flora dilemmas!

Phoebe Elfert MacRae said...

i am so pleased that my guess of the family name of the pink amaryllis plant was not wrong! Oh the humiliation if it were a hyacinth!

love ya!